


Fair Trade

by OneBlueJay



Category: Naruto
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Bottom Hatake Kakashi, Captivity, Collars, Emotional Manipulation, Experimentation, Forced Feminization, Insane Obito, Kakashi is NOT okay, M/M, Mad Scientists, Mind Control, Muzzles, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Partial Mind Control, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements, Top Uchiha Obito, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 16:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17584154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneBlueJay/pseuds/OneBlueJay
Summary: AU: During Naruto's time away with Jiraiya, Kakashi is kidnapped by Orochimaru, who still nurses a fascination for the strange bloodline of his one-time friend Hatake Sakumo. The consequences are more far-reaching than anyone could have predicted, but, given the Uchiha's obsessive streak, maybe they should have.





	1. The Witch Is Dead...

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings used in this not-for-profit piece of fiction.
> 
> Having exhausted the AO3 uke!Kakashi archive, I have resorted to writing my own. Please pay attention to the tags (!!!), but otherwise, enjoy!

Kakashi hated the weight of the collar around his neck. He hated how his once blunt fingertips now curled into claws. He hated that his teeth pricked the inside of his cheeks to tinge his senses copper. He hated the iron muzzle clamped around his jaw, straps digging into the bridge of his nose and wrapping around the back of his head. He hated that his captor’s sick sense of humor had selected a muzzle shaped like a snarling dog’s snout. But most of all, he hated the fact that he really might just maul someone— _anyone—_ if Orochimaru ever took it off. 

“The Hatake’s canid traits were always less. . . _overt_ than the Inuzuka’s, but always so much more potent,” Orochimaru had said the first night he’d had Kakashi strapped down to an examination table in his lab. “Heightened olfactory senses, physical stamina, killer instinct, pack mentality—all tucked away beneath a veneer of human civility. The Hatake never truly embraced it, all the way down to your father. Sakumo-san and I discussed the topic several times, both curious as to why, and I, of course, requested a few genetic samples so that both our curiosities could be sated.” 

Orochimaru had paused to wipe drool from Kakashi’s lips where the jonin had tried to spit at him through the gag. “Sakumo-san regrettably declined, so you can imagine how pleased I am to have you here, Kakashi-kun.” He caressed Kakashi’s cheek and smiled as the man’s single visible eye glared daggers at him. “We’ll discover the secrets of the Hatake bloodline together.”

Kakashi didn’t know how much time had passed since then, just that every moment of it had _hurt_. He often found himself thinking of Tenzo. He found some small solace in the fact that he was facing this hell as a fully-trained shinobi and not as a scared child. He would survive and he would escape and he would return to Konoha and to what remained of his cute genin team and he would _fucking tear out Orochimaru’s throat with his teeth—_ no, no, that’s not right. He would use a kunai. Yes, a kunai. That sounded more like him.

He never got the chance, though, as his wayward student ended the snake before Kakashi had even figured out how to escape his cell. The jonin had felt an odd stab of satisfaction at that. According to Orochimaru, Sasuke had been entirely unaware of Kakashi’s predicament, but it still felt nice to be avenged, albeit unintentionally. With the snake gone, the hideout’s security had lapsed and was overrun by (former) test subjects within the week. 

“P-p-please, don’t hurt me. Please, I—”

“Maa, maa.” Kakashi waved one glistening red hand as he used the other to slowly apply pressure to the man’s windpipe. “All I’m asking for is a quick chakra burst to get these pesky restraints off.” Kakashi gestured at the muzzle and collar still wrapping his skin from the collarbone up. He’d snapped the chains binding his wrists and legs himself, but these two required an authorized chakra signature. “No need to have an aneurysm, orderly-san.”

The man nodded quickly, eyes blown wide. Another wave of his fear scent inundated the hallway—sweat, piss, and a sickly sweetness. Kakashi’s nose wrinkled underneath the muzzle. The jonin relaxed his grip on the man’s throat and watched as he raised a shaking hand toward the muzzle. 

“Collar first,” Kakashi specified.

The orderly obeyed. The collar fell off with hiss and clanged against the ground. Kakashi barely kept himself from cringing at the sound (were sounds always this loud?) and shivered as cool air hit raw skin. He was never wearing so much as a necklace again. “Now this thing.” He tapped the muzzle. 

The orderly paused. “A-and then I can go?”

“Maa, of course.”

The muzzle fell off with a click. Kakashi ripped out the orderly’s carotid artery. 

 

 

The few test subjects that Kakashi saw gave him a wide birth. Absently, he wondered if it was because they recognized which name in the bingo book sported silver hair and a sharingan eye or if the hesitance was born purely from his current appearance. His blood-caked hair didn’t look particularly silver right now and his left eye was closed, so probably the latter.

Kakashi wasn’t a stranger to how he looked. Orochimaru had made sure of that. At first the snake truly was just interested in the Hatake’s canine heritage, but as Kakashi began displaying more and more visible traits, his captor’s interests. . . shifted. First it was the photos taken on the dissection table or in the testing arena. Then pictures of him sleeping in his cell and, worse, of him awake in situations that he didn’t remember. Orochimaru delighted in examining and commenting on every photo while Kakashi was strapped down to the table beside him, gagged. 

“Ahh, your fangs have grown another three millimeters and the bicuspids have sharpened to a point. Soon we’ll need to switch you to a purely carnivorous diet to suit the shift.” 

“See how your eye reflects the camera’s flash? The tapetum lucidum has begun to grow in. We’ll have to check whether the same has occurred in the sharingan eye while you’re unconscious.” 

“Look how your muscle mass is shifting. You’re even leaner than you were at the start. _Marvelous_.”

The first time Kakashi awoke on Orochimaru’s bed, he mistook it for his own back in Konoha. For one blissful moment, he’d curled in on the pillow at his head and thought what a shitty, messed-up dream he’d just had. But then fingers carded through his hair and his consciousness was yanked back into the hell that was his life. 

Kakashi had of course gone for Orochimaru’s throat because who the fuck did Orochimaru think he was, letting an ANBU veteran anywhere _near_ him, captured and muzzled or not? The shock that ripped through Kakashi’s body had answered that question quickly. 

“There, there,” Orochimaru had crooned, combing his skeletal fingers through Kakashi’s hair as the jonin trembled through the aftershocks. “Try that again, Kakashi-kun, and I’ll have to turn up the collar’s setting.” 

Kakashi did try again, and again, and again, until he was just a twitching mass curled up in the fetal position on Orochimaru’s goddamn comforter. 

Orochimaru had chuckled and continued to run his hands through silver hair _._ “My, my, Kakashi-kun, what a rebellious little puppy you are. I can hardly believe that you are Sakumo’s.”

A surge of rage had scored Kakashi a swipe across Orochimaru’s chest. His lips curled into a vicious grin underneath the muzzle as he felt blood trickle warm underneath his claws. The grin was short-lived though, as the next shock sent him into a full-blown seizure. When Kakashi regained consciousness, the pillows were gone, replaced by familiar cold metal at his back and straps criss-crossing his body. He remembered Orochimaru leaning over him, yellow eyes crazed and expression delighted. “Don’t worry, Kakashi-kun,” he’d said. “We’ll get you house-trained in no time at all.”

In the present, Kakashi gingerly ran his fingers across the raw patch of skin where the shock-collar had sat. After Orochimaru had revealed his intention of making Kakashi into his goddamned _pet_ , the jonin had taken a sick sort of pleasure in driving the snake to use the collar at every possible opportunity—every shock signified another command that Kakashi refused to obey. If he was being honest, it was amazing that he could still feel his extremities. 

He followed the scent of food, easily picking it out even under the stench of blood, fear, and death, to a room that he presumed had been some sort of mess hall for Sound Shinobi. Several of them had died here, body parts strewn across the floor. Kakashi dug through the room-sized pantry hidden behind a false wall. He bit into a rations bar and started to chew, only to yelp when the movement jarred his lower jaw and pulled uncomfortably at his too sharp teeth. He tried—he really did—to keep chewing, but eventually had to admit defeat and spit it out. Orochimaru had been right. His new teeth were not meant for anything other than tearing meat. 

He sank to the ground and stared at the wall, trying to squash the flutter of panic rising in his chest. This wasn’t his breaking point. He wouldn’t lose the composure that he’d fought so hard to maintain over a fucking rations bar. 

Eventually Kakashi stood and found a refrigerator packed with unlabelled meat. _Ox, rabbit, deer, elk, chicken, duck, turkey—_ kami, why did he know that? Tremors ran down his arms and yet his mouth watered. Suddenly he was reaching forward and had a flank of venison in his claws and tore off a chunk with his too-sharp teeth and swallowed it whole and—to be honest—didn’t much care. _Survival_ , he reminded himself. ANBU training steadied his shaking limbs.

Orochimaru had made sure to keep him just weak enough that he never posed a real threat to the Sannin. To the Sannin’s lesser staff, definitely, but not to _him_. (Toward the end, Kakashi was pretty sure that Orochimaru was using him as a threat to keep his underlings in line.) That effort had entailed keeping Kakashi just underfed enough to prevent his chakra from ever replenishing itself much beyond the ability to make a few sparks. 

Kakashi ripped off another piece of venison and swallowed it whole, relishing the feeling of it slide down his sore throat. 

If he intended to make it back to Fire Country alive, he needed to up his chakra reserves. Executing laboratory grunts was one thing. Escaping insane science experiments and trained shinobi was another. 

Speaking of, the acrid scent of antiseptics and dried blood hit his nose. 

Keeping the venison in hand (because like _hell_ he was dropping that after just finding it), Kakashi slid into a crouch and pressed himself against the wall. A few moments later, the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall. 

“Ne, ne, you sure it went this way?” The voice was deep, male, probably in his mid-thirties.

Another voice shushed him. “Don’t talk so loud,” it whispered. Female, rough and crackling like she hadn’t drunk in weeks. “It’s probably got enhanced hearing or some shit. Orochimaru-sama wouldn’t have kept it unless it could do something.”

“Ne, ne, of course. That’s why we’ve got so many people looking for it.” The first voice laughed breathily, and Kakashi felt a chill creep up his spine. They couldn’t be talking about _him,_ could they? The footsteps drew closer. “You think that if I throw an orderly’s arm, it’ll play fetch?”

Kakashi’s claws cleaved the venison in half as a snarl ripped itself from his chest.

The footsteps stopped. Then the woman laughed, all dust and sandpaper, and it was worse than the man’s. “Well, well, Goro-kun, it seems like you’ll be finding out soon enough.”

Fuck. Kakashi scanned the dark room for another exit. He had no idea who these people were or what they were capable of, nor what their allies were capable of. And they definitely had allies. They’d made that much clear. Allies that were looking for _him,_ kami knew why.

Kakashi pushed that disturbing bit of intel aside and kicked his senses into high gear, tracking the thud of wooden sandals against concrete and the tell-tale _schlick_ of a sword being unsheathed. _Ten meters, five meters, three, two—_

The false door shattered. Light poured in and a flash of metal, then skin. Kakashi grabbed the elbow, pivoted, and bisected the man’s wrist with the claw of his index finger. Blood sprayed the wall. The sword flew through the air into the man’s other waiting hand and he swiped it down towards Kakashi’s exposed chest. The jonin fell back in a dodge, slamming his left foot into the man’s stomach. The man crashed through the refrigerator, sword still in hand. He was big, at least a foot taller than Kakashi and three feet broader. _Goro,_ Kakashi remembered. That’s what the woman called him. Goro was laughing, a crazed look in his eyes, seemingly unconcerned by the river of blood gushing from his wrist.

Wait, the woman. Where was the woman?

A whisper of wind and a ripple through stone and suddenly she was two inches from his face, grinning madly, one hand against the wall behind him and something round and metal in the other. Terror twisted Kakashi’s gut as he recognized exactly what it was. 

The woman’s grin widened, digging into her already hollow cheekbones. “That’s right, doggy-san,” she crooned. “Just stay still.”

Kakashi spat fire.

The woman screamed and fell back, clawing at her face. Kakashi was in the hallway before he could fully register that he’d moved. He looked back, hands shaking. Why did she have a collar? Orochimaru was dead! No one in this kami-forsaken place should care about him anymore, not enough to come after him. To everyone except Orochimaru, he was just another experiment, albeit one that the snake had taken an unusual interest in—

A horrible thought struck him. What better way to symbolize your climb to the top than to take the previous king’s possessions?

“Bad dog!” The woman ground out. She appeared in the doorway, clutching the right side of her face. A glistening burn stretched from her chin to her temple. Goro loomed behind her, still guffawing like someone had tickled him with a feather instead of ripping open a major artery. “All that time spent with Orochimaru-sama, and you still aren’t properly trained,” she hissed. “What a shame.”

“I’ve been told I have a willful streak,” Kakashi said as he dropped into a defensive position.

Goro gasped. “It can talk!”

“ _It_ can also rip out your throat,” Kakashi growled. “Why are you pursuing me?”

Neither acknowledged that he’d asked a question. “Ne, ne, it’s voice is kind of cute, isn’t it, Chikako-san?”

“I’d call it more annoying than _cute._ Now get the damn seal on it.”

That must have been what the collar was for. Not good. Kakashi had just gotten his chakra _un_ sealed, and he didn’t plan on going back. It felt really good to be able to melt someone’s face off. “Maa, you realize that if you admit something is annoying, I’m just going to keep doing it, right?”

Chikako glared at him while Goro sighed almost. . . _longingly?_ It made Kakashi cringe. “Ne, Chikako-san, are you sure we couldn’t just keep it? It’s not like that freak has much power ‘round here now that Orochimaru-sama is gone.”

What _freak_ was he talking about? It didn’t sound like he was referring to Kakashi.

“Maybe not, but he does have money.” Chikako licked her chapped lips. “And he’s willing to pay a hell of a lot for that silver bitch.”

Kakashi felt his upper lip curl over his canines and wished he still had his mask. Okay, okay, so someone with a lot of money had put out a capture-order on him. Things could be worse.

The air shifted and a dozen more scents laced the air, all growing stronger as they moved toward his location. Fast.

Fuck.

Male, female, male, male, twenties, teens, late thirties, Kiri, Kumo, wind, earth, flame, scabs, blood, blood, blood, blood, blood—

“You’re slow, doggy-san.”

Kakashi’s eye widened as Goro’s uninjured hand closed around his throat. When had he moved? Kakashi felt bloody fingertips on his neck, then metal, then the ruffle of the man’s breathy laugh. Then his Sharingan snapped open. 

“ _Chidori._ ”

The sound of screeching birds drowned out Goro’s wail, but Kakashi could feel it, thrumming up the lightning-covered arm that had ripped through the bastard’s lungs. There was clang as the collar that Goro had been hiding up his sleeve hit the concrete, followed by the rattle of his last breath escaping through the hole in his chest. Kakashi let the chidori die. The body slid off his arm and slumped face-first over the collar. 

Kakashi’s mismatched eyes met Chikako’s. “Who is paying you?”

That eerie grin crossed her face again as she averted her gaze just enough to avoid the swirling red and black tomoe. “So the Copy-nin’s still in there somewhere, huh? Good. That will make this more fun.” Her hands dropped from her burned face and she slid into a fighting stance. “Come, Hatake Kakashi,” she rasped. “Let me test out that new body of yours.”

Kakashi snorted as he mirrored her stance. Earth-based, he thought, but with a touch of wind in the curve of the wrists. “Maa, maa, Chikako-san. _Kinky._ ”

 

 

Kakashi met Chikako blow-for-blow. Like he’d guessed, her chakra nature was earth but she supplemented with wind. She was skilled. Skilled enough to keep Kakashi momentarily at bay, but even with his depleted chakra-reserves (in hindsight, that chidori may not have been the best idea) and out-of-practice muscles, he knew that he would win. So did Chikako. 

Kakashi didn’t notice when she began using her wind jutsu to isolate the hallway’s airflow until hands wrapped around his arms and metal snapped around his neck. The fireball he’d just thrown evaporated as his tenketsu slammed shut. Right eye widening, Kakashi slammed the left one shut, but it was too late. He collapsed to the ground face-first, remaining chakra drained by his own damn sharingan. Someone rolled him onto his back, and before he blacked out completely, he registered blurry, grinning faces looming over him. Damn wind jutsu. He hadn’t even smelled them coming.


	2. Splinters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please pay attention to the tags! Otherwise, enjoy.

Kakashi awoke to the smell of burning wood and seared rabbit skin. A makeshift blindfold was wrapped around his eyes, tight enough to make him wonder whether he’d even be able to open them. By the odor of it, the blindfold used to be someone’s sleeve. He was sitting on bare dirt, bound to a tree trunk. He could feel bark digging into his back through the thin material of his shirt. His wrists were manacled behind the waist, each finger carefully tied to the next to prevent any chance of forming seals. The metal collar hung heavy on his neck and kept his tenketsu firmly closed. No muzzle, though, just a gag. That was nice. His legs were free, too, save for a thin chain between the ankles. He hated that he considered that _free_.

He kept his breathing even and his pulse slow. No point in letting his captors know he was awake. Like he’d scented in the tunnels, there were about a dozen of them. Chikako was sitting a few meters to his left with another woman, this one in her early twenties compared to Chikako’s thirty-something. Another woman, also in her twenties, sat on the other side of the fire. Alcohol tinged her scent. The rest were male, ranging from mid-teens to late thirties from the smell of it. Their boots thumped against the ground as they clapped and sang, lyrics slurred unrecognizably. 

Though Kakashi’s front was warmed by the fire, the air at his back was cool and humid. Night, then, although that didn’t give him much context since he hadn’t had the slightest clue what time of day it had been while in the tunnels. 

Despite the circumstances, he had to admit that it was. . . nice to be outside. The scent of grass and living wood was almost enough to make Kakashi feel safe.

He crushed that thought mercilessly. Sure, his current situation was better than being caged in a psychopath’s lab, but fuck if he was going to be grateful for it. Fresh air and wind whispering through the trees didn’t change the fact that he was still deep in Sound territory at the mercy of enemy-nin. One of whom was currently tottering toward him. Male, late teens, hammered. Great.

The boy stopped inches from Kakashi’s feet. “I still can’t believe that this guy managed to kill Goro-san.” He snorted, fingers drumming the bottle he carried. “I mean, look at ‘im. He’s skinnier than me!”

“Don’t underestimate him.” Kakashi recognized Chikako’s rasping voice. “Cold-Blooded Hound, Friend-Killer, Copy-Nin. Those titles aren’t just for show, kid. Hatake Kakashi. . .” She trailed off and laughed. The noise around the camp began to die down. “He’s one of the best Konoha’s produced in decades.”

Wow. Kakashi almost wanted to thank her. Sure, he’d still kill Chikako in heartbeat, but he’d do it civilly. With a kunai instead of teeth.

“He _used_ to be one of the best.” A heavy pair of boots walked past the boy and knelt down beside Kakashi’s prone form, crunching a dry leaf underfoot. “Nah, this thing here’s just Orochimaru’s old bitch and our next paycheck.” 

The jonin could feel the man’s breath on his cheek, could taste the alcohol and plaque on it, until Kakashi felt like he was suffocating, betrayed by the sharpness of his own senses. Kami, how did his ninken deal with this? His nose wrinkled on reflex.

“Oh.”

Shit. Kakashi’s eyes tried to widen behind the too-tight blindfold as fingers dug into his scalp and slammed the back of his head against the tree trunk. He gasped through the gag.

“Good. It’s awake.” the man said. Kakashi resolved to call him Plaque-breath.

“Hey, hey, _hey~._ ” The woman who had been dancing with the men until Chikako’s comment sauntered toward them. “Why’d you have to hurt him like that? That little nose wrinkle was just so _cute~._ ” She somehow managed to split the simple word into three syllables. “Are you sure we can’t take off the blindfold? His eyes would be such a _treat_.”

Kakashi didn’t like the way she said that. 

“Are you suicidal?” snapped a new voice. “He’s got the Sharingan!”

“It’s not like he can use it with the collar on,” argued another voice. “You saw how fast he went down when he tried.”

The first snorted. “Maybe, but best not to tempt fate.”

“Ugh, _fine_.” The woman’s clothing rustled. Kakashi assumed she was crossing her arms over her chest. “It’ll still be fun even if we can’t see his reactions.”

Reactions? Reactions to what?

Kakashi got his answer when a thumb began to massage his inner thigh. He jolted and kicked upward as far as the chains on his ankles would allow. The metal pulled on his skin. The woman leaned back just enough so that his toes ghosted over her cheek. She laughed, delighted. Then there were hands all over, holding Kakashi down until his joints screamed that they were being bent the wrong way. Plaque-breath was on him again, so close that Kakashi could feel the stubble on his chin. The jonin twisted to rake his teeth, still exposed over the taut cloth of the gag, across the man’s face, only for a hand to wrap around his throat and dig viciously into the back of his neck. Kakashi dropped like a deadweight. A keening whine cut the air. He realized with a belated sense of horror that it was coming from _him_. 

“Whoa, so cool, Katsuo-san!” the woman cried. Kakashi vaguely felt fingers run down his cheekbones and grip his chin. “How’d you do that?”

Yes, thought Kakashi, how _did_ you do that, Katsuo-san? The world around him was spinning, scents catapulting thirty feet into the air, then plummeting back to earth. The nails left Kakashi’s neck, but the fog didn’t lift. His head lolled back against the tree. 

Katsuo sounded almost embarrassed when he spoke. “It was just a guess really. I used to train ninken, y’see, and some puppies have this reflex that makes them go limp when you grab them by the scruff. It helps the dams carry them.” He laughed nervously. “I didn’t think it would work so well on an older dog, though.”

Kakashi snarled, fog lifting. For the last fucking time, he wasn’t a fucking d—

Nails sank into the back of his neck and he gasped.

“My oh _my~_ , isn’t he feisty.” The woman removed her nails from his skin, one-by-one. Warm blood trickled down his spine. 

Oh, kami, what had Orochimaru _done to him_?

“Look, boys, he’s shaking!” She laughed. Her fingers began to card through his hair. “I don’t think we’ll be needing these anymore, not with this handy trick.” She lightly drummed the back of his neck.

Someone (Plaque-breath, yes, it was Plaque-breath) grunted in agreement. The pressure of the ropes binding him to the tree vanished and Kakashi slumped forward, manacled wrists clanking behind his back. Someone snapped the chain at his legs.

He could run now. He _needed_ to run now, needed to get away, needed to armor the back of his neck with steel and never let it see the light of day.

Plaque-breath yanked him upright like a ragdoll. He pressed Kakashi’s back flush against his chest, one arm digging into the jonin’s diaphragm and the other pressed firmly against the nape of his neck. A warning. 

A hand—the woman’s maybe? Or Chikako’s? He didn’t know where Chikako had gone. All the scents were jumbled now. Wait, was that cinnamon? Why was there cinnamon?—ran up his thigh. Panic set in. He knew that this sort of thing happened to captured shinobi all the time, but not to _him,_ not to Kakashi the Copy-Nin. He was too strong for this. ( _Except for Orochimaru, but that was a sannin and the stakes were different and he’d had to and—)_

“Don’t worry, puppy,” the woman crooned. “We’ll take good care of you until your next owner gets here.” The hand reached his waistband and began to pull it down, slowly, knuckles brushing his skin, almost tenderly, as the world slowed and Kakashi’s breath quickened and—

The forest exploded. 

Birds screaming, wood splintering, an inhuman roar. 

People screaming, bones splintering. 

Kakashi hit the ground with a gasp. Plaque-breath was shrieking somewhere above him, voice getting shriller and shriller as it rose toward the canopy only to—s _quelch, hisssss._ Warm liquid sprayed Kakashi’s skin. Copper flooded his lungs.

Kakashi stumbled forward, bare feet sinking into blood-soaked dirt and sliding past chunks of something too slick to have been there before. Agonized screams cut through the cracking wood behind him as he stumbled past the tree line. He needed to escape, to get out, get out, get out—

Something rough wrapped around his ankle. He yelped as he was launched through the air back the way he’d come. His back slammed into a tree trunk, crushing his manacled wrists against it. Throbbing pain blossomed up his arms and he choked on his own breath as staggered to his feet. Another tendril slammed him back down. 

The forest was moving, Kakashi realized. It was mokuton. 

_Tenzō?_ he thought desperately, but there was no earthy scent of a flower bulb just planted, only cinnamon and smoke burning his nose.

He tried to stand again, but his head hit a tree limb that he didn’t remember being there, and then his shoulder hit another, and then his knee. The wood closed in like a cage and Kakashi couldn’t keep down the shriek that ripped from his throat. 

It stopped. 

Slowly, the roar of his own heartbeat lessened and an eerie silence was left in its wake.

_Drip. . . drip. . . drip. . ._

Kakashi had fallen back against the tree trunk, wooden bars somewhere close in front of him. He could smell the splintering of new shoots. The world beyond was copper and death and cinnamon and sickly sweet fear. A pair of footfalls, steady and swaying, approached, and for the umpteenth time since waking, Kakashi wished that he could see.

The footfalls stopped in front of the cage. Kakashi didn’t dare breathe.

The man—because it was a man, and he was all cinnamon and burnt wood—let out a sigh. It was a loaded sound, almost predatory. It made the hairs on the back of Kakashi’s neck stand on end, and there was something else too—it was familiar, just like the cinnamon, just like the sauntering gait.

“So _this_ is where you’ve been hiding all these months. Just trying to make it difficult for me, ne, Bakakashi?”

All remaining blood drained from Kakashi’s exposed skin.

Uchiha Obito reached through the bars of the makeshift mokuton cage and cupped his ghost of a former teammate’s chin. He ran his fingers down to the collar, then over the gag and the blindfold. He didn’t make any move to undo them. “So, did ya miss me?”

 

 

When Zetsu materialized through the wall of Obito’s kitchen and said in a suspiciously gleeful tone that Kakashi had finally resurfaced, Obito’s bowl of rice had slipped through his fingers and shattered against the floor. Seven months. Seven months since Kakashi had gone missing in the Land of Rivers and not a trace since. 

_Maybe piranhas ate him_ , a White had giggled.

Obito had ripped that one apart and ordered another to find his ex-teammate before he roasted this batch of Zetsus on a spit. But they hadn’t. No one had—and Obito knew that Konoha was searching just as furiously as he was. He’d laughed when White had informed him that his old village suspected that the Akatsuki were behind the disappearance. _Hatake_ ** _would_** _make good bait for the Kyuubi_ , Black had growled thoughtfully. But no, the Akatsuki—the all-powerful, god-led network of missing-nin—couldn’t locate Kakashi anymore than Konoha could. Not even dangling the prospect of Kakashi’s bounty in front of Kakuzu had yielded results, although the zombie had really, _really_ tried. (Obito may have inflated the number).

And yet, here was Zetsu, with news and a shit-eating grin on his two-colored lips. The feeling that somehow he’d been played nagged at the back of Obito’s mind, but he pushed it aside. He had more important things to deal with.

Obito watched the missing-nins’ camp from his perch in the canopy. Twelve of them, ranging from late teens to near middle-aged. They were all former experiments, he could tell that much from the way they reveled around the bonfire like it might disappear at any second. They’d been Sound shinobi more recently, though. They carried themselves with that sort of simultaneous arrogance and bone-deep fear.

Not like Kakashi.

The silverette was slumped, bound to a tree trunk with a chakra seal clamped around his neck. His hair was longer than the last time Obito had seen it, spikes wilting into tips of blood that hung over his forehead and blocked his face from view. Obito’s lip curled. For the second time that night, he wondered what exactly had triggered Orochimaru’s interest in Kakashi. Zetsu had been dodgy on that. The sharingan would have been the obvious answer, but the snake already had Sasuke—a pair of _genuine_ sharingan, not just a spare—and even if his intent _was_ to obtain another of the Uchiha’s dōjutsu, it still didn’t explain why he’d kept Kakashi _intact._

Seven months with the snake. Obito couldn’t think of a worse punishment. He should have felt pleased, vindicated even, but instead he found himself irate. Kakashi did deserve to be punished, but the right to inflict that punishment, to draw it out and make Kakashi truly suffer, was Obito’s and Obito’s alone.

The forest prickled under his synthetic skin.

What had Orochimaru done with Kakashi in those seven months, anyway? Even unconscious, the silverette’s body language was. . . different. The shoulders curled in too much and his limbs were loose, looser than Obito had ever seen them despite the chains. He was leaner, too. At first Obito thought it was just a trick of the light and malnourishment, but when Kakashi started struggling against his captors, movements sharp and the flick of his head fierce, Obito realized that the jonin’s frame really had narrowed. He frowned. Curse marks could do that? Then one of the nin had pulled a trick with the back of Kakashi’s neck and Obito managed to catch a good look at it—no curse mark, just pale skin weeping blood underneath a collar.

Obito inhaled sharply. He recognized that move. Kakashi had done it when training his ninken, almost as an afterthought whenever the puppies got too energetic, and the result had been just the same: complete submission.

A dog. Orochimaru had tried to make Kakashi his _dog_. 

And he’d _succeeded_.

Suddenly Zetsu’s mocking grin made sense. The plant had known and sent him out here _without saying a damned thing._

The forest ripped through Obito’s skin with the roar that ripped from his lungs.

After he killed these bastards, he was going to fucking _mulch_ Zetsu.

 

The blood and fire cast Kakashi’s face in an almost ethereal glow. The jonin— _ex-_ jonin, really—had his back pressed flush against the trunk, the makeshift wooden bars casting shadows across his skin that flickered with the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

“So _this_ is where you’ve been hiding all these months. Just trying to make it difficult for me, ne, Bakakashi?” 

Obito watched, delighted, as Kakashi’s already pale skin turned ghostly white.

He reached through the bars of the mokuton cage and caressed the Hatake’s chin, running his index finger down to the cold metal collar and then brushing his thumb up over the gag to the blindfold. A genuine smile crossed Obito’s lips for the first time in years. He’d thought that the restraints would upset him, but now that Kakashi was truly _his_ , they didn’t bother him so much. Besides, right now the restraints were useful. 

His grin widened as Kakashi began to shake under his touch. He could only imagine the confusion, the _fear,_ swimming in the eyes hidden behind the blindfold.

He’d always known that he wanted Kakashi in his perfect world—locked away in a pantry somewhere or chained in the basement. Rin wouldn’t like it, but she wouldn’t have to know. No one would. They wouldn’t even know that a Hatake Kakashi had ever _existed_. Kakashi had taken his world, so Obito would take his, and as the Uchiha built the perfect world outside, he would tear down Kakashi’s until it was just him, four walls, and Uchiha Obito.

And now he had the opportunity to start early.

Obito’s faint smile shifted into an outright beam. He moved his fingers toward the back of Kakashi’s neck and let the cage disintigrate around him. “So, did ya miss me?”

He dug in his nails and laughed giddily as Kakashi went limp, shuddering in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have several chapters already written that I plan to release over the next few weeks. Hopefully, updates will never take longer than a week.
> 
> Cheers and someone please save my soul.


	3. Difference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi wakes up in a new type of prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's an extra long chapter as penance for my delay. Thank you for all your positive comments! I know that this type of story is a guilty pleasure for me and many others, so hopefully you continue enjoying it.
> 
> CWs for this chapter: Non-Con Body Modification, Non-Con Touching, Graphic Depictions of Violence
> 
> (Please let me know if I missed any.)

 

Kakashi awoke with his cheek plastered to a hardwood floor. He sat up slowly, eye flitting about to confirm that he was as alone as his nose said he was. It was also just nice to see again. The restraints were gone save for the chakra seal locked around his neck. His physical state otherwise remained the same—still dressed in rags borrowed from a dead Sound shinobi and still covered in blood. 

He’d been dumped in a bathroom, which was, admittedly, a strange development. Not to mention that the bathroom was made entirely of wood, from the sink to the toilet to the massive wash-basin that took up half the floorplan. His nose wrinkled. He couldn’t find a single construction seam, and with a rising sense of dread, also realized that he couldn’t find a door. 

Kakashi pushed himself to his feet only to stumble as his vision blurred. He leaned against the wall, trying to calm his racing breath.

Obito was alive. Or someone was posing as him. Yes, that must be it. Someone had found out about his connection to the dead Uchiha boy and was capitalizing on it.

. . . but what would anyone have to gain from doing so? Was fake-Obito the buyer his captors spoke of? Or maybe one of the buyer’s emissaries, sent to kill the delivery-boys rather than pay them? But the cinnamon was Obito, and so were the footsteps, and so was the way “Bakashi” slid off his tongue. 

Kakashi shook his head. No, no, Obito was dead, and even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t have done _that_. Kakashi ran a shaky hand over his scarred eyelid. Obito was the loud-mouthed kid who wore orange goggles and never left his teammates behind. He wasn’t _capable_ of that bloodbath.

A piece of paper resting on the sink caught his eye. He frowned. Had that been there before? He shuffled over to it, keeping one hand on the wall just in case he keeled over.

**Clean yourself up.**

…that’s it? Kidnapped by a man acting like his dead teammate, and that’s all he gets? Kakashi snorted and crumpled the paper so the writing didn’t show.“Fine,” he muttered as he set it back down on the counter. There wasn’t much else he could do in a door-less bathroom, anyway.

_Keep your breath steady, pulse slow, muscles loose. It will help keep your mind sharp._

Kakashi stripped. The layers of blood peeled off like layers of clothing, piling on the floor in a cracked open beehive of red and black, scabs and cotton. He caught view of his bare face in the mirror and hesitantly parted his lips. Teeth glared back at him. He shut his jaw with a click, grabbed a washcloth from the shelf, and tied it around his face before stepping into the basin. The cloth muffled the scents around him, but at that moment he didn’t much care. 

He turned on the water, careful to keep his makeshift-mask dry, and tried not to wince when the scalding hot spray hit scars that didn’t use to be there. There were no curtains, he noted. That being said, there also weren’t windows or doors, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised. 

Kakashi shifted to let the water flow underneath the chakra seal, only to hiss as the pressurized water dug into the scrapes at the back of his neck. He shifted again and ran his fingers over the raised welts. He remembered that trick. Katsuo- _san_ —he spat the honorific with venom and subconsciously crossed one arm over his chest—had been right about it only working with puppies. Guruko had been the last of his ninken to outgrow the reflex and he’d been just under five months old when the pinch to the neck had become nothing more than an invitation to nip.

So why the _fuck_ had it worked on Kakashi?

The water at his feet turned red, making him frown. He’d already washed off most of the blood. A faint ache swelled in his upper arms and he glanced down. His claws were buried half a centimeter deep in his skin. Kakashi’s legs went out from underneath him. 

He remembered when they’d first begun to grow in. His nails had gone first. He’d watched them fall off one night like skin off a snake. Orochimaru had practically _crowed_. “New gene expression,” he’d hissed, pressing down on Kakashi’s inflamed fingertips just hard enough to make the nascent claws break through the final few layers of skin. Kakashi had screamed through the muzzle. Blood ran in rivulets down the metal table. “See, Kakashi-kun? Our sessions weren’t for naught after all.”

Kakashi yanked himself from the memory and slammed off the water. 

_Keep your breath steady, pulse slow, muscles loose. . ._

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

Suddenly he could taste copper again, so much copper; hot liquid trickled down his skin as someone rose higher and higher in the trees above him, screaming, torn open, blood spraying—he turned the water back on, shuddering. He left it on cold this time.

He finished quickly, no longer enamored, no matter that it had been so long since he’d had a shower to himself, without orderlies watching, or sponging his skin, or pushing his face underwater—

No. No, no. Couldn’t go there.

Kakashi shook his head until the world was wood again. Water sprayed the walls. He grabbed a towel to dry the rest off—

“Huh, you even shake yourself like a dog.”

Kakashi whirled on his heels, hands yanking the towel around his waist and teeth bared in a snarl behind the washcloth.

A man in an orange mask leaned against the wall, no indication of how he’d entered. (There still wasn’t a door.) One dark eyehole bored into Kakashi’s own. “That washcloth looks uncomfortable,” he said. It was the same voice from the forest. “Doesn’t it, I don’t know, dull your sense of smell or something? That’s a stupid thing to do in your condition, Bakashi, no matter how self-conscious you are about your face.”

Kakashi’s muscles tensed, but he kept his voice level. “Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

“No,” the jonin ground out. “I really don’t.”

“See, now that hurts, Bakashi.”

Kakashi didn’t respond. He was too busy cataloguing the man’s appearance. Nondescript outfit besides the mask, short black hair, taller than Kakashi and broader too, specks of dust on the left sandal, dried blood on the shirt-collar—

“Why don’t you come take off the mask, then? Maybe that will jog your memory.”

Kakashi’s eye narrowed. He’d claw a hole through the wall before he went anywhere _near_ his captor.

Fake-Obito cocked his head, shadows cast deeper by the mask’s raised swirls. “Oh? I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Let me rephrase.” He held up one hand and cleared his throat. “Come take off my mask, _now_.” The light shifted to catch the spin of red and black tomoe.

Kakashi’s breath hitched and he quickly averted his gaze, foot sliding back across the hardwood as he racked his brain for who in the _hell_ would have a sharingan other than him, Sasuke, and Itachi.

“Bad choice.”

Shoots erupted from the floor and snagged Kakashi’s ankles. He yelped as they wrenched his feet out from under him. He hit the hardwood on one knee and scrabbled to get up, claws digging into the wood, only for more branches to wrap around his other thigh and drag it down. Vines as thick as a shinobi’s arm hooked over the skin above his knees, pinning him in a kneeling position that cut off blood flow below the calf. Kakashi gasped in pain.

The masked man loped forward, glee apparent, and Kakashi realized that this was exactly what he’d wanted. The jonin hissed as more vines wrapped around his wrists to prevent him from shredding his restraints.

“Honestly, after all you’ve done, the least you could do is follow simple directions.” The man shook his head as he crouched down in front of Kakashi, rocking back-and-forth on his heels. “See, unlike those idiots under Orochimaru, I recognize that you’re not an actual dog, so I won’t treat you like one.”

“Oh, how kind of you,” Kakashi sneered to hide the tremor that ran down his spine at the mention of the snake’s name.

The man _tsk_ -ed and hooked one gloved finger around Kakashi’s makeshift mask. The jonin’s eye widened in panic. “No, I won’t treat you like a dog because I won’t give you the leeway that would allow.” He pulled the washcloth down around Kakashi’s neck and stared at the uncovered face for a moment. 

Kakashi felt his cheeks heat up. Cinnamon burned his nose, crept down his throat, and seared itself into his lungs.

“So, keeping in mind that I recognize you as a fully-functioning, rational human being. . .” The vines holding Kakashi’s right hand loosened. “. . . _take off my mask_.”

And Kakashi, having no other viable option and _knowing that cinnamon so goddamn well_ , complied.

The orange mask clattered to the floor while Kakashi’s hand remaind frozen mid-air. 

“You’re…you’re him. You’re really him.” 

The face staring back at him may have been older and half-scarred and horribly _cold_ , but it was also the face that haunted Kakashi’s dreams, side-by-side with Rin’s—crumpled, dying, accusing, screaming. “Obito, where have you been?”

Obito’s scarred faced twisted into an expression that was something akin to pleased. Hand shaking, Kakashi reached toward it. Obito caught his wrist halfway. The grip was tighter than the mokuton. Why did Obito have mokuton?

“Why, where we’ve always been, Bakashi, you included.” Obito’s fingers began to dig painfully into Kakashi’s skin. The jonin’s muscles spasmed. “In hell.”

 

 

Kakashi felt like he’d been lying on the bathroom floor for hours, but the lack of doors or windows made it hard to tell. It could have been twenty minutes for all he knew. Twenty horrifically long minutes. He hadn’t eaten anything since scarfing down those few bites of venison in the Sound hideout’s kitchen, so hunger wasn’t a reliable time-keeper, and neither was his circadian rhythm since his sleep schedule had been fucked since first being captured. He’d expected Obito to return relatively quickly, or to at least _return,_ but now it was dawning on him that given Obito’s current state, that was a stupid assumption to make. 

In Hell, he’d said. Fear wormed itself around Kakashi’s gut.

After forcing Kakashi to unmask him, Obito had left via what Kakashi guessed was a variant of kamui. With its user gone—because that’s what Obito was now, apparently: a mokuton user with the Mangekyō Sharingan—the mokuton had receded back into the floor and Kakashi had collapsed against the wash-basin, trying not to shake. 

Obito was. . . different. Darker. He had a glint in his eye that hinted at scars deeper than the ones swirling across his right side and at wounds still weeping blood. What made it worse was that Kakashi knew he had been one of the people to carve those wounds. 

His arm elbow-deep in Rin’s ribcage, crackling white lightning and dripping red, blotted out the ceiling above him—

The wall slid open. 

Kakashi sat up. He stared. Then he stood and edged forward.

It was an apartment of sorts, specifically of the all wood sort. It still wasn’t clear whether that was because mokuton made for easy construction material or because it allowed Obito to control everything down to the fake wooden flowers sitting in a vase on the cornertable. 

Seriously, how the fuck had Obito gotten mokuton?

Kakashi tasted the air. Cinnamon, but fading. Obito had to have left a while ago.

Then why had the wall opened just now? 

He took a few more tentative steps, then decided that if Obito wanted to kill him, he already would have. And the opportunity to walk around unimpeded was too tantalizing to pass up.

The apartment had an open floorplan, nothing more than a few waist-high walls and a breakfast bar to set off one functional space from another. Kitchen, living area, bedroom. It was larger than his apartment back in Konoha, but that wasn’t saying much. He cast a skeptical eye along the walls. Still no doors or windows. Kakashi tried to ignore the feeling of dread that settled in his stomach at that.

He chose to investigate the wardrobe first as it was the closest thing. The towel tied around his waist was starting to chafe. First he checked the drawers for traps and, predictably, found none because why the hell would Obito ever boobytrap a _wardrobe._ He yanked the top one open with a little more force that necessary. Inside were a selection of simple yukata. He checked the other drawers. They were empty. 

He grabbed the nearest yukata, one made of a black cotton, and slipped it on. He would have preferred pants, but anything was better than a bath towel. He tossed _that_ unceremoniously on the bathroom floor. 

The rest of the apartment was about as bare as the wardrobe. The bed was large but simple. Kakashi was thankful for the latter. Orochimaru’s hadn’t been. It had been decked out in a rotating circuit of silk sheets and embroidered comforters that dwelling on made Kakashi shudder. He moved on.

A low-wall separated the sleeping area from what looked like a multi-purpose living and dining space, almost reminiscent of the dining room he remembered from Minato-sensei and Kushina-san’s house. A low table sat at the center, one cushion on either side of it. A desk was tucked against the low-wall, opposite the bed. Whoever sat at it would have a clear view across the bed and into the bathroom. Kakashi could see the wash-basin where he’d showered even from where he stood.

The feeling of dread grew.

The kitchen was well-equipped. Refrigerator, ice-box, oven, stove, pots, pans, skillet, ladle, whisk, spatula, chopsticks, knives . . . 

The last one made the dread that threatened to bubble up in his throat solidify into cold certainty. 

Obito knew what Kakashi could do with a knife. They’d fought alongside each other in the Third Shinobi World War and Kakashi had only been twelve then. The fact that Obito was giving Kakashi access to any weapon at all, even if it was culinary, could only mean that the Uchiha was confident of his ability to subdue Kakashi at any time. The jonin cast an apprehensive gaze back at the walls. His previous thought that mokuton might have been used for ease instead of control evaporated. 

He caught a whiff of fresh cinnamon. He whirled on his heels. “Obito?”

Nothing for a moment. Then the tell-tale swirl of kamui. Obito stepped out, the mangekyō in his right eye spinning and a. . . bag of groceries tucked against his shoulder? The Uchiha walked past a stunned Kakashi and dumped the contents across the counter. “Make dinner,” he said with a wave of his hand, then shuffled back toward the bed and threw himself face-first into the pillows.

Kakashi blinked several times. “Obito, what—”

The Uchiha held up one hand and growled. “Don’t make me seal your voice along with your chakra, Bakashi.”

Kakashi repressed the urge to bite back and held his tongue for time being. He was hungry anyway. 

As he began taking inventory of the strange ingredients brought to him (really, what could have possessed Obito to get seaweed strips alongside cherry tomatoes?), he tried to parse the new scents that laced the air. Ame, Kiri, the sea off Uzushio, Kumo. Obito’s kamui allowed for more than short-distance teleportation, Kakashi realized, which made figuring out where they were currently located almost impossible. Whatever scents Obito carried back with him, they could have come from a mile out or from halfway across the continent. Nonetheless, he catalogued each one and filed it away. Perhaps he’d notice a pattern given more time and data. 

He prepared the meal in silence. He was using his claws to tear the strings off of snow peas (a surprisingly useful skill) when Obito placed his chin on his shoulder. The snow pea that Kakashi had been separating hit the counter in five thin slices. Obito ignored it. “What are you making?”

Kakashi picked up another and dutifully stared at its fuzzy green surface as the claw on his right index finger tore off the string. “Stir-fry.”

“That’s sort of boring.”

Kakashi moved on to the carrots. “Then you should have given me more direction.” 

There was a pause and Kakashi pulse sped up despite his exterior calm.

A sigh ruffled Kakashi’s hair. “Oh well, I’m sure it will be good. Your cooking always was.” The weight of Obito’s chin disappeared, followed by a soft shuffle and the scrape of wood across wood.

Kakashi risked a glance over his shoulder. Obito was sitting at the breakfast bar, elbows on the counter and chin perched in his hands. His single black eye followed the movement of Kakashi’s fingers.

Kakashi refocused his attention on the pan in front of him and tried to drown the sharpening scent of cinnamon with frying vegetables. He made sure to boil everything until it was soft enough for him to swallow without chewing. He absently wondered whether his digestive system would even be able to handle vegetables.

They set the table with fine chopsticks from Kiri and porcelain dishes from Iwa. Obito cried “Itadakimasu!” before stuffying his cheeks with noodles. 

Halfway through the meal, Obito poured a white jasmine blend from Tea Country into Kakashi’s cup, chattering on-and-on how he’d been torn between it and a fruity oolong that he’d be sure to get next time. He complained about how Kakashi hadn’t used the cherry tomatoes and seaweed he’d bought and then pondered whether it was possible to make tomato-based sushi. He even offered to buy eggplant for the project, then promptly rejected his own suggestion because “nah, eggplant is gross.”

It was all very. . . domestic. 

Eerily so.

“Do you like the apartment?” Obito asked suddenly. “I made it just for you.”

Kakashi didn’t know what to make of that admission. “It’s. . . secure.”

“Oh, you mean the lack of windows?” The Uchiha bobbed his head and sighed with disappointment. “I know it’s irritating, but this world isn’t complete yet. I’ll bring some paintings to hang up in the meantime so you don’t get bored.”

“ _This_ world?” Kakashi asked hesitantly, taking another sip of white jasmine tea. He had to admit, it _was_ good.

Obito smiled and laughed like Kakashi had said something funny. “The perfect world, of course. But don’t worry, I’ll finish it soon. Then you can come pick out ingredients with me so I don’t buy the wrong things.”

“What do you mean by ‘perfect world?’”

“The world as it should be, where there are no wars and child soldiers. Where shinobi live long, happy lives. Where mistakes are never made because every mistake can be fixed.” He leaned across the table and smiled, bright and dangerous. “Where you never killed Rin.”

Kakashi paled.

“Huh, I’ll have to get you some better clothes.” Obito settled back in his seat and cocked his head, his single onyx eye roaming Kakashi’s form up and down. “I thought the yukata would look nice enough, but it’s a bit plain. Not that you don’t look good, of course. I’m not saying that. No, no, you definitely look good. You just could look a little bit _better_.”

Obito wasn’t just different. He was _insane_.

 

 

It wasn’t like sleeping next to Obito was anything new. Missions often necessitated cramped quarters and odd positions. Kakashi remembered one night in particular when Obito had clung to his back like a spider-monkey to keep himself from tumbling off their shared tree branch. (Rin and Minato-sensei had gotten their own branches.) But this felt nothing like that mission.

Obito patted the mattress beside him again, this time with more force. His eye had narrowed. “Hurry up. I’m tired.”

“I’m not.”

The eye narrowed further. “That’s a lie.”

“I can sleep on the couch.”

Obito slowly sat up. “I want you to sleep here.”

“I don’t.”

“Bakashi, why wouldn’t you want to sleep in your own bed?” His eye began to bleed red. “Now get over here.” 

A shiver ran through the wooden floor and Kakashi’s mind flashed back to being pinned to the bathroom floor by mokuton. He couldn’t risk that again. He took a step forward, then another, and another. He could feel the weight of Obito’s gaze on him. The weight of Obito’s _insane_ gaze.

_But he hasn’t hurt you, not like Orochimaru did_ , a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind, as if that should be something he was grateful for. Kakashi crushed it mercilessly. 

He kept his back to Obito as he lowered himself onto the comforter. He began to lie down.

“Nope.”

Kakashi froze.

“You’ll catch a cold like that.” Obito’s voice was unnaturally calm. Obito was never calm. “Best to get under the covers.”

“Right,” Kakashi muttered. _Just keep breathing_ , he told himself. _Pretend it’s a mission. Deep cover to disarm the target and gain access. You’ve done it before, you’ll do it again so long as you do it well._ He slid under the sheets and laid his cheek against the pillow, the fabric rustling painfully in his ear. An arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him further from the edge. The lights dimmed to nothing, but Kakashi could still see. He wished he couldn’t. He squeezed his eye shut.

“Finally.” Obito’s breath ruffled the back of Kakashi’s neck. It sounded almost relieved. “I can _sleep_.”

_Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe._

“Oh, and just so you don’t go getting any stupid ideas, know that I don’t need to be awake for the mokuton to act.” The walls creaked ominously and fingers curled around Kakashi’s ribcage. “Sweet dreams, Bakashi.”

Kakashi couldn’t seem to get his vocal cords to work. 

He didn’t sleep at all that night.


	4. Routine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please pay attention to the tags. CWs: Rape/Non-Con, Possessive Behavior

As much as Kakashi hated to admit it, he’d accepted the routine without much resistance. It was easy, easier than anything had been in a long time.

Obito would wake him in what Kakashi assumed was the morning. (Or rather, Obito told him to get up. Kakashi never actually slept at “night”.) He’d issue a breakfast order, then fall back asleep until food touched the table, at which point he would be inexplicably awake. The Uchiha would then chatter on about some inane topic as he ate. Sometimes he’d mention “work” and mope about some vague thing that he refused to fully explain. (Obito didn’t like questions directed at him.) Usually, he’d assign Kakashi some chore to finish before he returned: mend a pair of ripped pants, wash the bedsheets in the tub, scrub the floor until it shines, etc. Then he’d smile and wave goodbye as he vanished into kamui.

That’s when Kakashi actually slept. He’d collapse on the bed and relish having it to himself. He’d lay there with a wet washcloth draped over his face to dampen the scent of cinnamon and would pretend that he was back in Konoha, sleeping in a particularly large bed that he had annoyed Tenzō into growing for him. That part of the day wasn’t so bad. Sleep, chores, katas. He was starting to pinpoint and regain some of the finer muscle tone that he’d lost in the Sound. He’d even gotten a sense for when Obito would return, like a circadian rhythm without the benefit of knowing night and day.

Which was why alarms bells went off in his head when, on the fifth day of this strange captivity, kamui swirled Obito into existence far earlier that it should have. Kakashi dropped out of his kata stance and stood straight, head lowered, hands loose at his sides. Demure because Obito liked demure and it was important that Obito liked him. For the mission.

(It had to be a mission. Had to be. Or Kakashi’s grip on sanity would slip.)

Obito stood silent in the center of the room, like he was waiting for something. Kakashi modulated his voice for the choreography they’d danced every night before. “What do you want for dinner?” 

One black eye snapped up to meet Kakashi’s. “ _You little whore_.”

Kakashi picked up the scent of rage and cinnamon and something else (like soot drifting off a forest fire) just before a hand curled around his throat and slammed him into the wall. Searing hot pain shot down his spine. His eyelid fluttered trying to make sense of his suddenly blurred vision.

“So fucking eager,” Obito sneered as he tossed Kakashi onto the bed like ragdoll. The jonin coughed and pushed himself up only for the bannisters to sprout branches and slam him back down on his stomach. The scent of soot sharpened.

“Obito?” Kakashi’s voice cracked. He strained his neck to glimpse the Uchiha stalking toward him, the Akatsuki robe billowing around him—wait, Akatsuki?

“It’s _Madara_ ** _._** ” 

Scarred fingertips yanked Kakashi up by the hair, bringing him eye-level with a face that was very much Obito’s yet smelled very much _not like him_. “I should have left you to rot with Orochimaru’s left-over trash,” he sneered.

Kakashi remained frozen, and the rational corner of his mind told itself that he did so because it was the safest bet, not because he was terrified.

After a tense few moments, Obito ( _Madara?_ ) snarled and released his hold, stalking away once more. The mokuton loosened its grip, not entirely but just enough. Kakashi slumped into the comforter, tracking Obito’s erratic path with one eye as he fought down the panic rising in his chest because that could _not_ be Obito and yet _was._

“Gratitude,” Obito muttered as he paced back and forth from the end of the bed to the kitchen counter and back again, his sharingan fixed on something that Kakashi couldn’t see. “Shinobi just seem to _lack_ it.” His gaze snapped back to Kakashi and his demeanor shifted to something more like curious. “Why do you think that is? I mean, you have experience with it. All three of your genin traded you in for Sannin at the first opportunity.”

Kakashi decided that it was best to smother the rage ignited by _this madman daring to even mention his cute little students, he’d fucking rip his soot-and-cinnamon throat out_ and said, “Gratitude isn’t generally a trait needed to complete missions,” 

Obito bobbed his head thoughtfully. “Huh. That’s actually pretty astute.” He began to pace again, slower this time. “What do you think about that?”

“About what?”

Obito flashed him a look like he was dumb. “About training children to kill each other while failing to teach them the basics of decent human behavior.” The look turned into a glare. “Or I guess you’ve never thought much about that.”

The back of Kakashi’s skull ached where it had hit the wall.

“You know, that day at Kannabi, I really thought you’d changed.” Obito raised a hand to his empty left eye socket and ran his fingers over the scar tissue. “I was _okay_ with dying because I’d get to see the future through you. Now I realize what a relief it is that I didn’t.” He laughed. “You weren’t ready for all that weight on your shoulders.” His gaze seemed to soften and he gave Kakashi an almost tender look. “I realize that now.”

Kakashi stared at him, bewildered, raking his eye over every divet and scar in his face because _why did that look have to be so familiar_. 

The cinnamon was back, rising over the stench of soot and brushing it under the floorboards like it had never been there to begin with.

“But don’t worry, you won’t have to concern yourself with those responsibilities again, not with me here.” 

Kakashi flinched as Obito began to walk toward him. The Uchiha stopped at the edge of the bed and lifted Kakashi’s head once more, this time with a gentle finger under the chin instead of a fistful of hair. 

“And believe me when I say that I am never, _ever,_ letting you go.”

Kakashi couldn’t resist, couldn’t even bring himself to _move_ , when Obito leaned down and pressed their lips together in a movement that was desperate and gentle and absolute all at once. And this close, with his nose pressed into the curve of Obito’s cheek, all Kakashi could sense was cinnamon.

Obito pulled away first. His expression was blasé, as if what he’d done was no more unusual than breathing. “You mentioned dinner earlier. I was thinking ramen.” He frowned. “We have ingredients for that, right?”

 

 

The soot was concerning. (So were other things, but Kakashi didn’t want to linger on those.)

Sure, Obito’s chakra nature was fire, but he never showed any indication of being charbroiled when he returned, nor of charbroiling someone else enough to make the stench linger. Not to mention that the scent always coincided with an episode of, well, _uncharacteristic_ behavior. Or maybe this was the behavior that Kakashi _should_ have expected and the gentle cinnamon was the uncharacteristic kind. Obito hadn’t brought up Madara since the first episode, but Kakashi suspected the two were related, and he spent his sleepless nights thinking up and discarding theories as to why.

Speaking of, Obito’s visits had become much more erratic. It was getting hard to keep track of time. The routine of sleep, chores, katas fell away as quickly as it had formed, leaving Kakashi to flinch at every creak of wood and every whiff of cinnamon (or worse, soot).

“You’re not sleeping well,” Obito said one morning (evening?), staring down at him. He was cinnamon today.

Kakashi stared back with a tired eye, face half hidden by the bedsheet (hadn’t Obito left just a moment ago?) and didn’t say anything.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help.” Black spun into red and Kakashi inhaled sharply, registering it too late. Consciousness slid from his grasp. He dimly registered Obito stroking his cheek and murmuring something into his hair.

 

 

_Help_ meant strange things to Obito. It was keeping Kakashi trapped in a plush prison. It was talking about the world as if it were a rasping, sickly creature that needed to be mercy-killed. It was wrapping his arms around Kakashi’s middle and whispering “ _failure_ ” over and over again in his ear like sweet nothings. It was screaming at him until spit mixed with the tears on Kakashi’s face and turned his skin to salt. Obito was cinnamon immolated and thrust against Kakashi’s bare skin still blistering-hot.

 

 

When Kakashi came back to awareness, it was to lips grazing his neck and fingers rubbing circles into the hollow of his clavicle. Kakashi inhaled sharply and kicked outward, but the strike was weak. His muscles hadn’t yet caught up to his neurons.

“ _Oof_.” A hand caught his ankle and someone laughed into his shoulder. ( _Obito._ ) “Not a morning person, are you.” 

Lips pressed back against Kakashi’s skin. The grip on his ankle remained, lifting it up and over until he was half straddling Obito’s chest. ( _He couldn’t see clearly. Why couldn’t he see clearly?_ ) Kakashi blinked rapidly against the bright light and the blurred black shape above him, breath coming in ragged gasps.

“ _Shh_ ,” Obito crooned as he ran a thumb down the loose neckline of Kakashi’s yukata. “Everything’s alright.”

No it wasn’t. No it wasn’t. _No it wasn’t_.

Kakashi’s instincts came back to him in a flash and for the first time since the fuckers had grown in, his claws felt _right_. He snarled, using the leg hooked around Obito’s ribcage to lift himself up and drive his other knee clean into Obito’s solar plexus as his claws scored upwards across the Uchiha’s right arm. Blood sprayed his face.

( _Keep him close so the mokuton can’t get you. If you keep him close enough, the wooden banisters can’t catch you without catching him too._ )

Obito reared back, roaring from deep in his chest, eye swirling with the sharingan’s tomoe— _wait,_ _shit, Mangekyō_. Kakashi watched in horror as his claws phased straight through Obito’s neck. He thudded back onto the mattress, his grip on the Uchiha gone. A hand slammed down next to his head and the world exploded in splinters and the stench of soot.

Vines dug harshly into Kakashi’s skin, dragging him flat against the bed. He tried to jerk his head up, only to be clapped across the face with an open palm that wasn’t quite a slap and wasn’t quite a sledgehammer. The world spun.

“You ungrateful _bastard_.” Obito loomed over him, eye spinning wildly. “I _saved_ you, I fucking _saved you_ and this is how repay me? With poorly thought out attacks doomed to failure? That’s so fucking _typical—_ always failing, failing, failing, you can’t fucking _help it_. I should have taken you years ago just to spare Konoha the shame of a jonin who can’t do anything other than fuck over everyone who’s ever cared about him.”

A hand shredded the tie of Kakashi’s yukata. He yelped and reflexively curled inward, only for the mokuton to yank him flat, pulling his body taut until every joint and all the vertebrae in his spine cracked. “Stop, Obito, I—“

“ _It’s_ ** _MADARA_** _._ ”

Mokuton invaded Kakashi’s mouth, pressing down his tongue and spreading between his teeth like a bit. He gagged.

“I wasn’t going to do this, not yet,” Obito sneered down at him, face twisted with rage. The wound on his arm had already sealed shut, steam rising from the disappearing scars. The scent was all soot. “I was going to wait until you wanted it, until you _asked_ for it, because you will, and because I love you—I really do, more than I should—but clearly you need an abject lesson on why, in the end, _your wants don’t fucking matter._ ” 

Obito undid his belt and Kakashi realized with a belated sense of horror that at some point between then and his failed escape attempt, the Uchiha had grown hard. 

_Can’t be happening. Can’t be happening. Can’t be happening_. 

The mokuton holding his legs loosened and resituated itself, forcing his knees to bend and his pelvis to tilt. He wildly shook his head, trying and failing to form words around the bit.

“This is going to hurt—” Obito grazed Kakashi’s entrance with his fingertips. “—so as it happens I want you to remember—” He jammed one finger in, quickly followed by a second and third, stretching and scissoring too fast and with too little lubricant. Kakashi hissed as his back arched. “—that you brought this upon yourself, Bakashi.”

The pressure of the fingers disappeared. Kakashi’s eye met Obito’s. And then the Uchiha rammed his length inside him. 

Kakashi _screamed_.

 

 

Gai stared coldly down at the Sound kunoichi kneeling in front of him. “Do not play games with me _._ ” 

On the other side of the clearing, Lee shifted nervously. TenTen stood beside him, one hand on his shoulder, and Gai knew that somewhere in the trees above Neji was watching too, his Byakugan scanning the forest for threats.

“I am not lying, Green Beast,” the kunoichi rasped. “I saw him with my own two eyes, fought him with my own two hands.” An aborted giggle shook her shoulders. She glanced down at the stump that used to be her right arm and felt the splinters still embedded in it twitch. “Well, at least when we fought I had two hands.”

“ _Get to the point._ ” Gai’s voice was low and dangerous.

Chikako took notice and wiped the smile from her face. She bent forward to press her forehead to the ground. “I swear to you on the graves of my clansmen, tortured and killed before their time by the Sannin Orochimaru, that as of six days ago, Hatake Kakashi of Konoha was still very much alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the positive feedback! I'm not sure I'd have the confidence to keep posting if it weren't for the overwhelmingly supportive comments. Please enjoy this double-update to make up for my two-week delay.


	5. All Things Considered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please pay attention to the tags.

Kakashi scrubbed until pinpricks of blood welled up in the pores of his skin. Obito wasn’tObito. He couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be doing this (wouldn’t have done _that_ ) if he were. But he _was_ , something inside Kakashi’s screamed it until its voice went hoarse with guilt and confusion and deep-seated, stubborn loyalty. This was without a doubt his loud-mouthed, goggle-wearing teammate who shouted his intention to become Hokage from rooftops and swooned over Rin everyday at the training grounds. This was the boy who had demanded that they go back to save Rin because people “who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash” and then had taken a boulder to save his cold-hearted bastard of a teammate. This was Kakashi’s _hero_.

So how could Obito be _this?_

The jonin dug his knuckles into the sides of his head, soap turning pink as water washed it down his bleeding skin. (Could he even call himself a jonin anymore? There had to be some sort of limit on how many times a jonin could get captured and humiliated before the title was suspended pending review.) He needed to escape, to warn Konoha that another vengeful Uchiha had survived and joined the Akatsuki, one that sought to reshape the world like he had this apartment. 

Kakashi shuddered as the wood around him seemed to close in. Obito was insane, and if the world he’d made inside these four walls was any indication, his “perfect world” would just be one massive prison.

Kakashi shut off the water with shaking hands. He dressed quickly (a white yukata this time because the black one no longer tied) and stepped gingerly into the main apartment, only stopping to dry his hair once he was sure that he was still alone. Satisfied, he curled up on the couch. It was a defensible position, tucked away in the corner. Not defensible from the mokuton of course, but nothing was. At least here he was comfy, or as comfy as he could be when he couldn’t sit straight without horrible, burning pain shooting up his insides. 

He waited, eye swiveling back-and-forth from one end of the apartment to the other, watching for any sign of kamui, but none came. Eventually, his breathing slowed and his eyelid began to grow heavy. He fought it at first, but exhausted rationality won out. He wasn’t any good worn out as he was. His eye closed and his head lolled against the armrest.

 

 

This time, Kakashi awoke to his tenketsu slamming open and chakra surging beneath his skin. His eyes, both of them, snapped open. He lurched forward, vaguely aware of a flash of silver. _Need to get out, get out, get out_ —

There was a cold pressure on his neck, then something clicked and the chance went up in smoke.

Kakashi nearly cried as he felt his chakra yanked back once more, tenketsu chained shut. He closed his left eye too late and slumped bonelessly against the couch, drained of what little chakra he had. He struggled to keep his right eye open.

Obito grinned down at him. “I thought that might happen, so don’t worry—I brought take-out.” 

As Obito set out the meal, he chattered aimlessly about the new chakra-suppressing collar fastened around Kakashi’s neck. It was tighter than the last one. “I had it specially made,” he said. “I’ll show you the designs in the mirror once you can properly see again.”

Yeah, Kakashi noted absently, his vision was pretty shit at the moment. He watched the black blur that was Obito move past him.

“I did the sealwork myself,” the blur boasted. “Now it’s multifunctional.”

_Multi. . . functional?_ He rolled the word over in his mind and decided he didn’t like it.

“Dinner’s ready.” 

An arm looped behind his back and another under the bend of his knees. Kakashi gritted his teeth, bracing for the pain that he vaguely knew was coming, but couldn’t stop the hiss that escaped his lungs. His insides _screamed_.

“Don’t worry. I got you an extra soft pillow.”

Kakashi wanted to scream outloud but his vocal cords still hadn’t recovered.

Obito positioned him in a mockery of a sitting position, his chest and back supported by a mokuton lattice just structured enough to give the illusion of proper posture. Obito hummed as he knelt down across from him and crossed his legs, a smile on his face as he studiously ignored Kakashi’s accusing glare. The Uchiha’s eye was especially black that day, shaded with something darker. Like a void.

Kakashi averted his gaze to the center of Obito’s chest and tried to ignore the trepidation rising in his stomach.

“I brought eggplant miso.”

…Obito hated eggplant.

“You’ll be able to swallow it without needing to chew much, so don’t even try to pretend that you can’t.”

No matter that, Kakashi couldn’t so much as lift a fucking _spoon_. How the actual fuck was he going to—

Obito lifted a miso-filled spoon to his lips. “Open up.”

…oh, like fucking _hell_ he would.

“Would you stop glaring? You realize that being a stubborn bastard will just make this more unpleasant for both of us.”

Kakashi’s glare didn’t weaken, nor did his jaw.

Obito’s eye flashed darkly and fear overrode exhuastion-induced numbness. It was a mindless sort of terror, the kind Kakashi had known when the Ichibi had reared its head inside Konoha’s walls and in the moment Itachi had first laid eyes on his precious students. His lungs seized up and his skeleton seemed to constrict to a brittle toy frame.

But the darkness in Obito’s eye was gone as quickly as it had come. 

“You’re ridiculous.” The spoon dropped back into the bowl and Obito slumped. “I’m trying to _help_ you, you know. This world, it’s… it’s _wrong_. Can’t you see that? After everything you’ve done? After everything done _to_ you? After _this_?”

Suddenly Obito was wrapping his scarred hand around Kakashi’s jaw and digging into the mandibular joint hard enough to make him gasp. Immediately, fingers invaded his mouth and yanked back his lips in a way horribly reminiscent of the orderlies’ daily check-ups. Kakashi jerked away in panic as he felt cold air hit the gums above his canines. The mokuton kept him where he was. Obito’s grip didn’t let up.

“I tried to find you. I did.” Obito’s single eye was wide and desperate. “I delayed the mission for you. I came back for you.” His expression turned fierce. “I _saved_ you like I’m going to save this world. Why can’t you _see that?!_ ”

The bowl shattered against the wall, dousing Kakashi in scalding miso. He yelped and pulled away. This time, Obito let him go.

Kakashi curled in on himself. The world was smoke and cinnamon and burnt flesh now. He buried his nose in the cotton of his yukata to try to block it out. Fabric rustled and joints cracked. “No, no, of course you can’t,” he heard Obito mutter. He was sitting back across the table. “This world’s blinded you, _ruined_ you. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure that you become what you should have been.” When Obito smiled, his scars twisted gruesomely.

Kakashi wanted to go home.

 

 

Obito wasn’t cruel. He did what was necessary, however unsavory that happened to be, but he wasn’t cruel. Kakashi was broken. He needed to be fixed. And Obito was the only person in this hell of a reality that could do it properly. Obito nodded to himself.

Deidara was ignoring him again. Not that Obito minded much. Tobi probably would, but Obito wasn’t in the mindset to play up that side of his alter-ego. He was content to stew. _Although~_ , Tobi’s nagging voice popped up somewhere in his cerebellum, _senpai_ is _a hit with the ladies~._ (And with men, though he hadn’t pursued those as much since Sasori).

Obito considered that. Perhaps a lighter approach would be useful. Only to supplement, of course—Kakashi was too far gone for anything else. Obito examined Deidara. The blond’s single blue eye was following the waitress’s kimono-clad behind.

“Ne, ne, senpai, you gonna fuck her?”

Deidara choked on his tea. “ _What the fuck?!_ ”

“Is that a yes?”

By this point, the waitress had noticed the attention and was blushing furiously. So was Deidara. God, Obito loved this kid.

“You don’t just say things like that, un!”

“Oh, so you’re just supposed to _think_ it? How does that work? Can women read _minds?_ Wow, wow, you’re such an expert, senpai.”

“Stop talking. _Please_ stop talking. We had such a good thing going, un.” Deidara almost seemed to be pleading with himself. It was endearing.

So was Kakashi, come to think of it.

“Ne, senpai, how do you woo someone?”

Obito knew that he’d gotten Tobi’s intonations wrong when Deidara looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Why do you want to know, un?”

“No reason! Nope, nope, none at all. Just wondering. For hypothetical purposes. As a shinobi. Yes, that’s it! For hypothetical purposes as a shinobi!” Obito liked being Tobi. It meant he could play dumb. He didn’t like, on the other hand, the wicked grin that had crept onto Deiara’s face.

“You like someone.”

Obito fell out of his chair for comic effect. “ _Huh?!_ No, no, no, senpai. It’s for _hypothetical purposes_.” Cue air-quotes. “…you do know what _hypothetical_ means, right senpai?”

“Of course I do, idiot.” But the insufferable grin was soon back. “What’s their name?”

‘Tobi’ crossed his arms and huffed. “Tobi doesn’t have to tell you that.”

“ _Ha_! So there _is_ someone, un.” Deidara was way too into this. “Is it Konan?”

This time, it was Obito himself (and not just Tobi) who spluttered. “What!? _No!_ ”

“Ah, gay. I knew it, un.”

“I am _NOT_ gay.” Shit. Obito bit the inside of his cheek. That was _not_ Tobi’s voice.

But Deidara only gave him an appraising look. Slowly, the wicked grin disappeared, replaced by a small frown and a slightly narrowed eye. “What do you want to know?”

Obito probably should have felt self-conscious—a thirty-one year-old man asking a nineteen-year-old for dating advice—but despite his youth, Deidara had undeniably more experience. (And he would never need to know that Obito was twelve years his senior.) “Eto~, so how do you, um, get them to, like, _like_ you?”

“Unrequited love, un.” Deidara nodded somberly. Huh, Obito had always assumed that Sasori had returned the blond’s affections. Guess not. “Sometimes there isn’t much that can be done.”

“But if there _were_ something to be done, what would it be, senpai?” ‘Tobi’ clasped his hands together. “He hates me!”

“And that’s surprising, un?”

“ _Senpai~…_ ”

“Fine, fine. What kind of person is he?”

“…what do you mean?”

Deidara rolled his eyes. “What makes him happy, sad, scared, angry, un? What does he throw himself into and what does he avoid at all costs? What makes him get up in the morning? What does he dream about as he falls asleep? What do his eyes say when he thinks you aren’t looking? You need to get a feel for the whole person—virtues, flaws, fears, and all—before you can change their mind about anything, un.”

Obito blinked. “Wow, senpai, I never knew you were so sentimental.”

Deidara flushed red again. “Fuck you, un.”

“No, no, senpai, I want to fuck _him_.”

The teahouse went down in clay and flames. Obito grinned behind his mask as he darted into kamui. Deidara had long stopped asking where he disappeared to, just thankful to be rid of him.

Deidara’s indulgent vibe would clearly be too soft to succeed in a project like Obito’s, but perhaps the points he’d raised weren’t so useless. Propping himself up against a moss-covered rock, Obito pressed his thumb to his chin and mulled it over in his mind. The venture hadn’t been a complete waste. 

Also, he added as an afterthought, that serving girl’s kimono had looked so _cute_ before being ripped to charred ashes. 

Obito gnawed on the dango he’d rescued from the blaze. God, he loved being Tobi.

 

When Obito returned home, Kakashi was standing in front of the mirror, trembling fingers ghosting over his chakra-suppressing collar. Obito had put him under a mid-tier genjutsu to stop the man’s violent panic attack after their lover’s quarrel. He must have managed to break it after a few hours despite his lack of chakra. Impressive.

It took a moment for the silverette’s head to snap toward him. Without chakra, the (former) jonin’s awareness had plummeted. Now he seemed to rely almost exclusively on his sense of smell, which, from the way he acted, Obito assumed had been wildly enhanced by Orochimaru’s experiments.

“Do you like it?” Obito asked, gesturing to the collar while knowing full-well that his ex-teammate hated it. “I made sure the design suited you.” Mangekyō swirls, Uchiha fans, and Hatake grids interlocked across an inch-wide silver lattice that clung to Kakashi's neck like a second-skin.

Kakashi’s expression seemed torn between baleful and terrified.

Progress.

“Did you have a nice nap?”

“…you trapped me in that cave.” Kakashi’s voice was hoarse.

Obito shrugged. “Be happy I didn’t put a dying me alongside you. Although…” he tapped his chin. “Maybe I should have. It might have given you more appreciation for the present.”

Kakashi flinched and dropped his gaze to the floor.

When it became obvious that Kakashi was not going to say anything further, Obito sighed and steeled his resolve. “Come over here.” 

The look Kakashi gave him clearly said that he’d rather ram himself face-first into the mirror.

Obito had to bite back a scowl at the blatant diplay of insolence that was far too reminiscent of the Kakashi he’d known as a child, but forcing the issue now would be counter-productive. Obito needed to build _trust_. “Fine. Be that way.”

Obito could feel Kakashi’s eye follow him as he dragged a cushion from the couch and threw it down a few feet from the bathroom entrance. Obito dropped onto it butt-first. “Can we talk?”

It took a moment for Kakashi to respond, and when he did, it was biting and cynical. “Do I have a choice?”

Obito held back a groan. Endearing as it was, they’d really need to work on the stubbornness. “You have a choice as to whether or not you’ll be _able_ to talk. I wasn’t kidding about that seal being multifunctional.” Obito slid the fingers of his left hand into the first half of a seal and let the threat hang in the air. 

Alarm flickered through Kakashi’s single eye. Obito smiled congenially as the silverette sank to a seated kneeling position. His yukata was still covered in miso stains. “What do you want to talk about?” It was _admirable_ how steady Kakashi was able to keep his voice. Almost as admirable as how straight he was keeping his back. That position had to _hurt_. 

_He must have had practice with Orochimaru_ , a voice that sounded suspiciously like Tobi’s sang.

Rage flared in Obito’s stomach. He shoved it back down so as to not ruin the bare semblance of civility he’d established. “I’ve decided to lay down some ground-rules,” Obito said with a flick of his hand. He imagined the rage being expelled through his fingertips. “Given your history, I think it will speed up the adjustment.”

“My _history_?”

Obito snorted. “Don’t play dumb, Bakashi. You’ve always needed rules. You _cling_ to them.”

Kakashi didn’t respond.

“All clear? Good.” Obito clapped his hands together. “Rule number one: you are no longer a shinobi of Konoha. In fact, you’re no longer an active shinobi at all. I mean, I guess the chakra suppressor made that pretty clear, but I just wanted to emphasize it.” He nearly bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from rambling, only to realize how childish that would be. He was in charge. He would damn well ramble if he wanted to. “I’m not dumb enough to think that we can clean all the shinobi off you, but think of yourself as, hm…” He searched for an apt analogy. “…a clan woman! Yes, that’s it. You had your time in field, sure, but now it’s over and you’re married and it’s time to be a housewife.” He grinned, pleased with himself.

Kakashi looked unduly horrified, as if being called a housewife was worse than all the horrors he’d endured under the thumb of this corrupt world.

“Rule number two—and this one’s pretty obvious—when I tell you to do something, you do it. No questions asked, no hesitation. I mean, I’ll understand a _little_ bit of hesitation, at least in the beginning, but I expect that to be gone within the month. I think that’s a fair goal.”

Kakashi’s expression had shifted from distraught to incensed. Wow, it was so fun to actually be able to see the Hatake’s face.

“And finally, rule number three, which really isn’t a rule so much as it’s a notification.” Obito leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and letting the sharingan swirl to life. He caught Kakashi’s eye and held it with a low-level burst of chakra that didn’t even merit the name genjutsu. He _relished_ the moment when Kakashi’s ire turned to alarm. “You’re mine now, and so long as you do as I say, you won’t have to worry about anything ever again. I’m doing this _for you_ , Kakashi, and I’ll make you happy yet, even if you fight it with every damn bone in your body.”

Obito relaxed his hold with a smile and Kakashi slumped, chest shuddering under the loose fabric. Obito felt a shiver of excitement. He had no doubt he could subdue Kakashi even if the other were in peak condition, but seeing him like _this,_ with less chakra control than a green-eared genin and terrified, it made an elated sense of possessiveness bubble up in Obito’s chest.

“Just one more thing before you make us dinner—and trust me, you’ll like this. It’s a _privilege_.” He savored the word. This wasn’t something Kakashi would have anymore, or at least not any more often than Obito would allow. Privilege. _Ha_. “I’m going to let you out of here. I think the lack of air is getting to you.” 

Confusion mixed with something that wasn’t quite joy (but could definitely be made to get there) sparked in Kakashi’s lone gray eye. He opened his mouth to say something (probably to ask why), but Obito waved him silent.

“Not today, though. We’ve talked enough and I am _hungry._ ” The Uchiha stretched as he stood. “Make me something tasty.”

He could see Kakashi’s emotions flash across his face (a beautiful face which was, by the way, very much _Obito’s_ now). Indignation, hesitation, fear, eyes flickering to the floor. Silence. 

Wow, if they kept this pace, Kakashi’s thought process would shorten to just the last stage _excitingly_ quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this chapter makes clear, Sasori is dead in this AU (r.i.p), and Deidara and Tobi have already been paired together for some time. In my mind, the Kazekage Rescue arc went much the same way, just with Yamato leading Team 7 instead of Kakashi. The only major difference is that Deidara never lost his arms to kamui, so he doesn't have the awareness of the technique that he might otherwise have.


	6. Teahouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obito tests out a new jutsu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: dysphoria, partial mind control

Kakashi noticed that Obito liked to watch him. The Uchiha’s coal-black eye followed his every move, flickered with every twitch, bored into the back of his head when they lay in bed, neither actually sleeping. It was the look of a shinobi put under genjutsu too long: unsure, on-edge, and just this side of vicious. Kakashi wondered if he too would soon have that look, given that Obito’s other favorite thing to do was catch him in unexpected, unprovoked genjutsu.

Currently, Kakashi could not move anything beyond his right eye. Obito’s fingers lingered on his waist as he undid the tie of Kakashi’s yukata, but Kakashi’s panic didn’t so much as accelerate his breathing—everything down to his heartbeat was paced by Obito’s damn sharingan. His body stood complacent as Obito tugged the fabric off his shoulders and tossed it away.

“Hm, what should you wear for your first time out…” Obito mused somewhere to his left. Light footsteps traced the Uchiha’s semi-circle path behind Kakashi’s naked back to his right side, where his free eye caught the flutter of Obito’s robes. “It’ll have to cover your hair and face, of course, seeing as you can’t henge. And your claws. Can’t have anyone thinking you’re _dangerous_.” Obito chuckled. 

Kakashi snarled deep inside his mind, but his chest continued to rise-and-fall calmly. His blood flowed normally despite the fact that it should have been flushing his face with embarrassment.

“A heavy veil, then, and a long-sleeved kimono.” Obito snapped his fingers. “I know just the one.” He flitted over to the wardrobe that he’d kamui-ed in that morning. (Kakashi was sure he was making his footsteps audible for his benefit, if Kakashi could call it that.) “I picked this up in Kiri last time I was there. Softest silk I could find and a _lovely_ design. Raise your arms straight out from the shoulders.”

Kakashi’s arms obeyed without his consent. He registered Obito’s fingertips sliding silk up his skin and letting it hang loose off his shoulders. 

“Don’t worry, I’m surprisingly good at tying the obi. Learned it from helping my female cousins when I was a kid.” 

A moment later, Kakashi felt fabric wrap around his waist and realized that it was far too wide to be meant for a man. Obito came around to his front, a grin playing on his lips. “If you’re lucky, people on the street will assume you’re my wife and not a prostitute.”

Kakashi couldn’t even glare. He didn’t have enough control of his facial muscles.

Obito continued to chatter inane things as he carefully folded and tied the obi, complete with all the accessories Kakashi had only seen on clan and noble women. It felt abnormally tight. _To give me a more feminine sillhouette_ , he realized with dismay. 

Then came the head piece, held in place by some sort of silk chinstrap and what felt like a million pins holding down his hair in plaits. Obito had stopped talking. His eye now dragged across Kakashi’s face with such singular intensity that Kakashi felt almost relieved when the veil dropped down. It was weighted, probably to keep it from blowing up in the wind. Through the mesh he could see Obito step back, admiring his handiwork. The Uchiha laughed. The sound was muffled through the fabric. 

“Wow, Bakashi. I could walk you into Konoha right now and no one but a Hyuuga would ever think it was you.” He sounded giddy. “Of course, I’ll keep you like this just to be sure. Can’t have you running around trying to leave people coded messages or anything.”

Kakashi’s mannequin body stood traitorously still, even as Obito leaned forward and reached underneath the veil to cup his face in his unscarred hand, thumb massaging his cheekbone. 

“The jutsu you’re under is a neat trick I learned after leaving Konoha. It’s only possible with the sharingan and an intimate knowledge of the target’s chakra system. I’ve completely overriden control of your neural pathways! Very dangerous in the wrong hands, which is probably why the Uchiha outlawed it, but I managed to salvage some old scrolls.” He laughed again. “I wasn’t sure it would work but _wow_ is this a pleasant surprise. I was debating whether our trips would be limited to uninhabited wastelands until you improved, but with this, we can go wherever we want.”

Kakashi wanted to spit venom at Obito and scream that he wasn’t a goddamn toy, wasn’t something to be reprogrammed like one of the computers in Konoha’s hospital.

_Except that you sort of are_ , mused a voice in the back of his head. _Orochimaru already broke your first code_.

Kakashi focused on blinking his right eye once, twice, three times, to keep his thoughts from spiraling.

“It’s a shame that we have to keep your face covered, though. The outfit matches your coloring so well. Oh! You haven’t even seen yourself yet. Come on.”

Kakashi’s legs moved of their own accord as Obito pulled him toward the bathroom. “Look at yourself in the mirror while I get ready, dear _._ ” Obito’s tone may have been mocking, but beneath the derision lurked something dangerously close to genuine, and that scared Kakashi far more. 

And so Kakashi was forced to stare at himself in the mirror while Obito exchanged his Akatsuki robes for nobleman’s wear behind him. Dammit, he really was unrecognizable. The kimono was a spray of delicate white and silver floral across black silk, kept in place by a gilded scarlet obi that tied at the back in a massive decorative knot. The head-piece was much the same—gold flowers set into scarlet satin that flowed into an off-white veil hanging well-past his chin.

Except it wasn’t him. It wasn’t him _at all_.

“You should hold yourself more like a lady. Fold your hands into the sleeves and pull your feet together.”

Kakashi watched with horror as the figure in the mirror did as it was told. _What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the—_

“Much better.” Obito leaned his chin on the figure’s shoulder. If Kakashi had been able to breathe of his own accord, he would have choked. Obito had henged himself into a scarless version of himself, complete with both eyes. They burned into Kakashi’s eye through the veil.

_You deserve this_ , the voice hissed again, angry and low. _You couldn’t save him. You couldn’t keep your one promise to him. You deserve to suffer, to be twisted however he chooses. You need to make it up to him._

“I think we’ll make the kimono a regular thing. It becomes the new you so well, don’t you think? Say yes.”

“ _Ye-es_.” Kakashi’s not-his-voice cracked desperately halfway through.

In the mirror, Obito frowned. “Hm, guess talking won’t be an option after all. The scrolls did say it was hard to perfect control of the vocal cords. Better to shut them off all together.” He kissed the veiled figure’s cheek. Kakashi felt it through the fabric. Obito made a one-handed seal and the collar around his throat shifted minutely. “Say yes again.”

Kakashi felt his lips move but no sound came out. Just the rasp of air. _Multifunctional_ , he remembered Obito saying about the metal seal.

Chin still perched on the figure’s shoulder ( _is that really me?_ ), Obito smiled widely. “Good. No chance of me forgetting and blowing your cover this way.” He kissed the figure’s cheek again, this time longer, only to pull back and lift the veil with a self-satisfied smirk. 

Kakashi stared at his own face in the mirror, exactly the same as it had always been down to the mole under his lip, except that it was horribly, _horribly_ not.

Obito wrapped his hand under Kakashi’s chin and turned it toward him. Two coal black eyes bored into Kakashi’s lone gray one. “ _Beautiful_ ,” he breathed. He let the veil drop back down.

 

 

They were within a two-days’ run of Konoha. _A two-days’ run_. And Kakashi couldn’t so much as unthread his arm from Obito’s as they walked down the street. The village was a small but wealthy one in northern Fire Country known for hosting the region’s well-to-dos. As such, it was more populated by personal guards than by shinobi. There wouldn’t be any Hyuuga coming to his rescue here.

_The air_ , Kakashi refocused his thoughts. _The air is nice_. 

It wasn’t a lie, per say. Under the overly-sweet and umami scent of luxury, it was still Fire Country and Fire Country was _home_. He needed to enjoy it while he could—and that wasn’t just the traitorous voice whispering in the back of his head. This was practicality. 

Obito had stopped to speak to some vendor on the street. 

_Focus_ , Kakashi reminded himself. He needed all the information he could get.

_What does it matter?_ the voice asked morosely. _It’s not like you’ll ever be able to use it._

_Shut up_ , Kakashi snapped. The last thing he needed right now was a split personality.

“Here, Kashi-chan. Try this.”

Kakashi found his mouth opening as Obito pressed a slice of exotic fruit to his lips under the veil. His too-sharp teeth bit down gently and mocked a chewing motion before swallowing the slice whole. Luckily, it was thin and soft enough not to choke him. Obito hummed, pleased, and asked for a bag.

Kakashi had quickly realized that verbal commands were not the only factor at play in Obito’s strange jutsu. Really, it might have been better to classify it as akin to Suna’s puppet-jutsu. Somehow, Obito was plucking the strings of Kakashi’s neural network by tricking it into thinking the commands came from Kakashi himself. And those commands, ultimately, were tied to the fluctuations of Obito’s chakra—not to his verbalized orders. It was the only rationale Kakashi could think of to explain Obito’s meticulous control of his movements down to the cardiovascular system.

_It must be distracting to manipulate both our movements at once… unless he’s using muscle memory as a shortcut, which would explain why I just tried to chew even though both of us know that I can’t._ Kakashi filed away the observation for later.

Now he was being led into a teahouse. Obito requested the table near the garden window. He had more than enough money for it. Probably came from the same nobleman Obito had assassinated for the clothes he wore. The host obliged with a wide smile and a low bow. 

Kakashi found himself seated in front of the window. It gave him a view of the garden and the street. It also gave the street a view of him, or at least of his veil. Obito was taunting him, he realized. Anyone and everyone could see him, but no one would actually see _him_. 

“Jasmine rooibos,” Obito replied when the server, a young man with a pompously coy smile, asked his order. Obito was radiant without his scarring, grown into the Uchiha elegance that had eluded him as a child and now escaped him due to scars and jarringly white prosthetics.

_Your fault_ , the voice whispered.

_Shut. Up._ Kakashi hissed back.

“And for the lady?”

“My wife has been struggling with nerves ever since we left home,” Obito said in a very concerned tone that made Kakashi want to reach across the table and punch him. Instead, he found his head lightly bowing with that demure arch of the neck that he’d once reserved for daimyo and Kage. “What do you recommend?”

“Might I suggest a sage and chamomile blend that recently arrived from Earth Country. It can soothe the most frayed sensibilities.”

Obito considered it for a moment, tapping his finger on his chin, then shook his head. “No, no, I’d prefer something locally grown. I was under the impression that the owner cultivated his own unique blends…?” He gestured toward the garden. “My wife has a soft spot for this part of Fire Country, you see.”

“Of course. In that case, might I suggest the passionflower-imbued oolong. Wonderful for soothing a traveler’s anxieties. The deep red will also match the lady’s ensemble quite well.”

“Yes, perfect.” Obito didn’t say thank you. Noblemen never did. He turned to Kakashi as the server left and smirked slightly. “Did you hear that? Your tea will be aesthetic. Maybe you should pour it on your clothes to make the aesthetic last longer.”

Had Kakashi been able to, he might have snorted.

As it was, they sat in silence staring at the garden until the server returned with ornate pottery cups and two clay-and-gold teapots. He poured their cups artfully and bowed before gliding away.

Obito sipped his. “Huh, I think I’ll buy a bag or two. This is pretty good. How’s yours?”

Kakashi glared at him—wait, he _glared at him_. A shudder ripped through his chest as he realized that he could control his body again. 

“Now, now, if you keep up that behavior, I’ll have to put you under again and that would be boring for both of us.” Obito’s right eye flashed red before he took another sip of tea and smiled. “Sorry about keeping your voice sealed, though. We can’t have anyone picking up on its unfeminine bass, but I can lipread through the veil well enough.”

_“Fuck you.”_

Obito snorted. “Good thing no one else can understand you because that wasn’t very lady-like.”

Kakashi felt a wave of discomfort. Sure, he was back in control, but it was only nominally. _“Good,”_ he shot back. _“You aren’t very gentlemanly.”_

“Oh, wow, you got me there. I’m so hurt.” Obito mock-clutched his heart, then rolled his eyes and let his hand drop back into his lap. “So, the tea?”

_“I prefer black.”_

“Yeah, well, you’ve got oolong, so I suggest you make the best of it.”

As much as Kakashi was loathe to admit it, Obito was right. _Use what you have_ , as some saying or another went. He went to lift the cup.

“Keep your, uh, _nails_ hidden.”

Kakashi sneered and shifted his grip so that the kimono’s sleeve draped over his claws. God, he wished he could just shred it. He put the rim to his lips and tipped it back with aggressive sharpness, only to tense when he realized what he’d done. He watched for any sign of retaliation, but his limbs remained his own. Obito just smiled. Kakashi wanted to scream. Instead, he swallowed the tea silently and relished the burn as it traveled down his throat to his stomach where it sat like a stone. He had an idea.

_“I hate it. Get me another one.”_

“…Excuse me?”

_“I’m a noblewoman, you’re rich, and I don’t like this tea. Get me another one.”_ Kakashi arched his eyebrows expectantly.

Obito’s eyes narrowed. “You’re pushing your luck right now.”

_“No, I’m embracing my role and making the best of it. Order me a sampler.”_

Obito glared, the glint in his eyes starting to border on vicious. Kakashi kept his gaze trained firmly on the bridge of the Uchiha’s nose and savored the taste of small rebellions.

“Fine,” Obito hissed. His glare melted into a slightly less dangerous smile as he waved the server over. “My wife isn’t particularly fond of the passionfruit. She’d like to try a sampler. Your best varieties, of course.” 

The server nodded, apologizing for his faulty recommendation (to which Kakashi simply dipped his head demurely), and promised to return momentarily. Obito turned back to Kakashi, the grin now solidly in the realm of dangerous.

Kakashi couldn’t help but feel like he’d missed something. But it was too late now. The server was back. He opened his mouth to introduce the teas, but Obito cut him off.

“I think a blind taste test would be more fun.”

Shit. Kakashi _had_ missed something. He went to shake his head urgently, to communicate to the waiter and anyone watching (absolutely anyone) that _something was wrong_ , only to find that he couldn’t. His stomach dropped. _How?_ He’d never made eye contact with Obito. How had he managed to recast the technique? He couldn’t have… unless he’d never dropped it at all. Kakashi felt himself beginning to panic, yet his heartbeat remained stubbornly slow.

Obito rested his cheek in his hand and smiled airily as the server finished pouring. “Go ahead and try them, _dear_.”

Kakashi watched his hand reach out, sleeve carefully folded over his fingertips, to pick up the first cup. Obito waved the server away, but his eyes never left Kakashi. Not even when the silverette was forced to down the cup in one go. 

Obito smiled wider. “Next.”

And on it went, Kakashi picking up each cup, swilling it, and moving on to the next before his insides had stopped burning. The other customers began to take notice, casting nervous glances their way, but Obito didn’t seem to care.

“Which one did you like best, darling? I’ll buy _loads_ of it.”

Kakashi hoped his single free eye communicated _fuck you_ well enough for the rest of his immobilized self. The empty cups sat in front of him in a neat row.

“Well, with that lovely interlude finally come to an end, we can move on to the main event.” Obito dropped several gold coins on the table and strode out, Kakashi following a step behind like a goddamn windup toy. He wouldn’t have been able to breathe had the jutsu not been forcing air down his half-choked windpipe. Obito wrapped his arm around Kakashi’s obi-constricted waist as they strolled down the street once more. “Be _happy_ , Kashi-chan! We’re going to see an old friend of yours.”

Obito laughed. The smoke was creeping over the cinnamon again. As they turned the corner, kamui swallowed them whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my wonderful readers, I am so, SO sorry for the delay. It has been a much busier month than I expected and I sadly will be unable to post regularly in the near future. However, I have not given up this story! Please keep an eye out for updates and continue reading. I plan to finish this fic no matter what life throws my way.


	7. Snakeskin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gai starts his quest, Kakashi reunites with an "old friend," and Obito makes a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: body dysphoria, partial mind control, Obito being absolutely horrible

 

Gai bulldozed the council for clearance. It helped that Tsunade supported his proposal, but it was ultimately Gai’s unusal and viciously solemn behavior that convinced them.

“Say we go through with it. If we want this mission to be covert, is Maito really our best option?” Koharu asked, distaste latent in her voice, as if Gai weren’t standing at the other end of the table, spine rigid and hands curled into fists.

“I assure you that the Flame of Youth will fuel, not hinder, my success,” Gai said coldly.

Shikaku cut off Koharu’s trenchant response with a hum and steepled his hands in front of his chin. “Maito’s reputation may in fact be an asset,” he mused. “Besides the Kage herself, he’s one of our most recognizable combatants. No one would suspect Konoha’s Green Beast of being assigned to a mission like this so long as we provide a suitable cover for his movements.”

Tsunade nodded in agreement. “Then it’s decided. Gai will lead the Kakashi search-and-retrieval team under the guise of inspecting our defensive network for weakpoints. As such, his former student Hyuuga Neji will be a suitable subordinate. His Byakugan is suited to both missions.” Tsunade rested her hands on the table and looked expectantly at Gai. “His other two students, not so much.”

Gai took the opportunity to put forth the names he’d spent the previous night selecting. “I would like to request Nara Shikamaru and Yamanaka Ino for temporary transfer.”

Tsunade’s eyebrows rose. Inoichi turned fully toward him. Shikaku just sighed into his hands.

“Splitting up the Ino-Shika-Cho trio so early in their training will endanger the village’s future as a whole!” snapped Homura. “This mission is far too farfetched to risk such valuable young shinobi. We already held the Hatake’s funeral. No sense risking young lives for the slim chance he’s alive.”

Koharu snorted in agreement. “The fact that you ask something so clearly impossible makes me wonder if you’re suited to lead this—I’ll say it again— _ill-advised_ mission at all.”

“Apologies, Mitokado-sama, Utatane-sama, but that reasoning doesn’t seem in line with your previous policies.” Gai bowed his head slightly. “You’ve never had a problem putting shinobi in the line of fire before, age-be-damned.”

The tension in the room snapped taught. Tsunade’s eyebrows crested her hairline.

Homura’s fist hit the table and he snarled, “Why you insolent—”

“I’m afraid that Maito-san is correct.”

Homura fell silent, staring at Danzo in disbelief. 

“The Ino-Shika-Cho unit is made up of shinobi and, like any other shinobi, they are tools. Tools that should be used to maximum effect.” Danzo dragged his single eye across the council-members. “As Yamanaka-san’s interrogation of the prisoner confirmed, Hatake Kakashi is still in possession of his sharingan. As such, we must do all in our power to recover it.” 

“To recover _Kakashi_ , you mean,” Gai cut in, glare dangerous.

Danzo’s expression did not change. “If possible.” He dipped his chin by a hairbreadth. “However, the team already has a Hyuuga. I do not see why another sensor-type would be needed. Might I suggest my former subordinate Sai instead? His ANBU training would fill a gap in the team’s skillset quite well, and it only makes sense that a current member of Team Seven participate in this effort to return its former sensei home. Surely, a Hyuuga, a Nara, and an ex-ANBU would make for a suitable team.” Danzo smiled.

“If I can only have one, I want Yamanaka Ino.” 

A few council members too long off the front line looked at him askance, but Tsunade steepled her fingers in front of her lips and slowly nodded.

It was Danzo, however, who vocalized the reasoning. “A wise choice, Maito-san. Apologies for my overlooking it. A medic-nin will, of course, be invaluable to the operation.”

Despite that being Gai’s reasoning as well, a chill ran down his spine. Danzo would need to be watched.

Koharu and Homura were nodding along, murmuring their support. Tsunade finally leaned back in her chair.

“Gai. Leave with Neji, Ino, and Sai tomorrow morning. My office will arrange the documents certifying your mission to examine our nation-wide defense infrastructure and diagnose any issues found therein. No one outside of your team and this room shall ever know the mission’s true nature and any breach of security will be met with swift reprisal. Kakashi must remain dead to all but your team and those of us in this room.” Her amber eyes bored into Gai’s from across the room and she said in a softer voice, “Bring back my jonin, Maito-san.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama.”

 

Kamui set them down somewhere in the Sound. Kakashi would have blanched if he could. 

“Good thing I’m regulating your heartbeat, or the excitement might overwhelm you.” Obito had exchanged the nobleman’s outfit for his Akatsuki robes and swirled-orange mask. Kakashi was still covered head-to-toe in the kimono. They began to walk forward, Kakashi’s footfalls terribly soft despite his mind screaming to _dig your heels in and snap your ankles so you can’t go any further._

They emerged in a rocky clearing. Near the other tree-line stood a hooded figure. The breeze shifted, wafting the figure’s scent across the stone and grass. _Yakushi Kabuto’s_ scent and…and…

Kakashi’s mind stuttered to a halt.

_NONONONONO._

Orochimaru was dead. Orochimaru _had_ to be dead. Kakashi wouldn’t—couldn’t—

The jutsu clamped down on his neural pathways as his rationality dissolved. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll go home after this,” Obito whispered in his ear, hand massaging his shoulder ( _notyourear, notyourshoulder, notyourbody_ ) before gliding forward. Kakashi remained still, trapped in his own skin at the edge of the forest, drowning in silk and terror.

_He hasn’t taken off the veil. He doesn’t know yet_. Kakashi made a desperate grab for coherence. _Obito said you’ll go home. Home. Home, home, home,homehomehome…_

He clung to the word like a lifeline and it was enough to let him catch Kabuto-Orochimaru’s next statement.

“I thought we had agreed that you would come alone, Madara-san.”

The bounce with which Obito normally walked had been replaced by something coldly cruel. He stopped halfway through the clearing. The figure glided forward to meet him.

“I didn’t agree to anything,” Obito ( _Madara?_ ) said. His voice was deeper than normal. “I just chose to humor a disgraced medic.”

The figure dropped his hood and the origin of Orochimaru’s scent suddenly became clear. Kabuto had stitched parts of the Snake Sannin’s corpse into his own flesh in a grotesque checker of pallid-purple skin. “Then I should thank you for your kindness, Uchiha-san.”

“What you should be doing is explaining why I shouldn’t kill you.”

“Such harsh words for someone offering to help you, _Madara_ -san.”

Kakashi knew that Obito had at least partially taken on the pseudonym of Madara—how could he not when the boundary between the two identities kept fracturing mid-episode?—but something about the way Kabuto said the name made Kakashi nervous.

“And what form could that help possibly take?”

“You are planning to wage war on the Five Nations, are you not?” Kabuto cocked his head and smiled eerily. “I could provide an army.”

Obito snorted. “The Sound doesn’t follow you anymore, Yakushi. You are alone.”

“And you are not Uchiha Madara, but that hasn’t stopped you from taking his title, ne, Uchiha-san?” Kabuto’s derisive smile made clear that this was not common knowledge. “I wonder how the despots of Ame would react to the knowledge that you’ve strung them along all these years. Are you even an Uchiha at all or is that eye stolen?”

Either Obito had become exceptional at faking his reactions down to the chemical level (his scent was closer to _pleased_ than _worried_ ) or this was all according to plan. He spread his arms, Akatsuki cloak ribboning in the wind, and chuckled. “Does it really make a difference?”

Kabuto regarded him for a moment. Finally, his gruesome visage twisted and he replied, “No, I suppose it doesn’t.” He sounded disappointed.

“So, back to the topic of me not killing you.” Obito took a step forward. The grass crunched under his boot. “So far you’ve just made me want to kill you more. Plus, I know that your death would make my companion over there very, _very_ happy.”

Kakashi’s thoughts froze as Kabuto’s slit yellow eyes landed on his veil. “Hm, yes, I have been wondering. Who _is_ that?”

Kakashi could feel Obito’s grin crackling through the air as he took another, much more threatening step forward. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Kabuto’s eyes snapped back to the Uchiha and he frowned for a moment. “Fine.” His hands flashed through a series of unfamiliar seals, then slammed into the ground. A wooden coffin erupted from the ground in a spray of dirt.

Once more, the only thing that kept Kakashi from paling was Obito’s forced regulation of his bloodflow. He’d seen this before. In the ruins of the Third Hokage’s fatal encounter with Orochimaru.

“Impure World Resurrection.” Obito’s tone was bored. He shifted his weight onto one foot and crossed his arms like an impetulant teenager. “Been done already, hasn’t it?”

Kabuto looked slightly insulted. “This is an improved version. With time and some incentive, I could perfect it further. Full revival.”

Obito paused, then continued ( _and yes,_ noted the most rational corner of Kakashi’s brain, _his scent was most definitely pleased)_ , “So far all you’ve shown me is a wooden box. I’m not really seeing why you deserve to live, let alone a reason to barter.”

Kabuto sneered. Slowly, Kakashi’s visceral terror of the man was receding into a more grounded fear—or rather, it was until the coffin slid open.

“Ohhh,” Obito’s smile was audible, “see, _now_ we’re talking.”

The semi-reanimated corpse of Uchiha Madara loomed silent in the shadow of the wood.

Obito began to circle the coffin and Kakashi, without the Uchiha’s presence between him and Kabuto, suddenly felt even more exposed. “How long would it take you to perfect it?” Obito asked, sharingan spinning through the hole in his mask.

“Depends on what the incentive is.”

As Obito rounded the other side of the coffin, he made eye contact with Kakashi. The skin around his visible eye crinkled in a grin. A horrible idea of why he was here bloomed in the back of Kakashi’s mind. Obito turned his attention back to Kabuto. “What do you want?”

“Uchiha Sasuke.”

Obito shook his head and sighed. “That’s not possible right now. I have other roles for him to play. What else?”

Kabuto’s eyes flashed. “There is nothing else.”

“Are you sure?” Kakashi watched as Obito began to stroll languidly toward him. “Because word has it that you and your old teacher had a _profound_ scientific interest in one of your specimens. You even sent a band of mercenaries after it.”

( _Nononononononono._ )

Kabuto’s serpentine eyes focused on Kakashi with a curious expression. “If it’s the specimen I think it might be, then yes, that might do.”

Obito stopped in front of Kakashi’s traitorous, complacent, _not his_ body and hummed. “I thought so.” He carefully, almost gently lifted the veil. “Oh no, he’s crying.” He swiped his gloved thumb under Kakashi’s right eye and watched, fascinated, as the tears made the leather glisten. Kakashi stared at him, pleading, _begging_ silently, because Obito had said that _they’d go home_. 

Kabuto crept—no, _slithered_ forward, beaming as he went with joy that was viciously clinical. “Hello, again, Kakashi-kun! It’s been so long. Did you miss me?” He turned bright eyes to Obito. “How are you restraining him? We never managed such effective control.”

He had to escape, had to get away. He struggled to dispel Obito’s genjutsu nerve-by-nerve, chakra string-by-chakra string, but it was hopeless. The moment he snapped one, another reattached itself.

“It’s a sharingan technique. Perhaps you can try it when I give you Sasuke post-victory.” Obito laughed. “He’s terrified of you, you know. If I weren’t controlling his regulatory system, he might have a heart attack.”

Kabuto’s gaze was one of distant insanity when he murmured, “Give me him and I won’t need Sasuke.”

Kakashi could feel a harsh grin crackle behind Obito’s mask and doubted that Kabuto had noticed. “Funny you say that because I never said I’d give you anything.”

Kabuto froze, suddenly aware of the mere inches that separated him from the closest thing this age had to Uchiha Madara. ( _Yes, kill him, killhim, killhimkillhimkillhim._ )

Obito cocked his head dangerously, as if to emphasize that he could snap Kabuto in half whenever he wanted. “As both of us have taken for fact, I could kill you without breaking much of a sweat. Sure, you’ve grafted some of the Snake’s flesh onto you, but we both know that you can’t control his power yet.” Obito let the veil drop back over Kakashi’s face and let an arm rest on his ( _not his_ ) shoulders. “I’m not unreasonable, though. The world I plan on building will be founded on cooperation, on the free sharing of resources and knowledge—something I think a scientist like yourself can appreciate.”

Kabuto didn’t respond, just watched them with a calculating look.

“So in the interest of equivalent exchange, here’s what I propose.” Obito slowly walked behind Kakashi, running his hand along the Hatake’s waistline as he went. “I return every week or two to check your research on perfecting the Impure World Resurrection technique and, if you demonstrate sufficient progress, I give you access to Hatake-san. I, of course, will review each procedure to make sure that you don’t do any permanent damage, but I’m open to discussions on why more extreme measures might be necessary for your studies.” Obito shrugged. “That, or you refuse and I just kill you now.” 

Kabuto’s lip curled in distaste, but his gaze lingered on Kakashi.

( _Whatdoeshewant,whatdoeshewant,whatdoeshewant._ )

“I’d like a good faith sample,” Kabuto finally said.

Obito’s eye narrowed. “What of?”

“Spinal fluid.”

( _Fuck no. Obito, say no._ )

“Do you have the proper equipment?” Obito asked instead, as if Kakashi weren’t even there. “I don’t need him getting tetnis.”

Kabuto scoffed. “Of course I have the equipment. I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise. I need him in good health for our session next week.”

“Ah, so that’s a yes!” Obito laughed. He stepped aside, once more leaving the space between Kakashi and Kabuto empty. “I do love a can-do attitude.”

Kabuto stepped forward and Kakashi’s mind went haywire. Obito continued to converse with Kabuto even as the ( _mad, fucking evil, bitch_ ) scientist pulled something silver from his cloak and slipped from Kakashi’s limited field of vision. The voices had faded to a drone, and yet Kakashi was horribly, _horribly_ aware of the madman’s touch. Dry snake scales slid over his neck, hooked over the collar of the kimono and pulled it down. One hand pressed down his head while something thin and cold pressed against the space between two of his upper vertebr—-

The world dissolved into streaks of color as Kakashi’s mind broke down in screams.

He came back to himself pressed against the side of Obito’s body, one of the Uchiha’s gloved hands rubbing circles into his skin while the other played with his hair. Kakashi still couldn’t move. How long had passed? The kimono was half-undone. The headpiece was lying in the grass. Tear-tracks cooled on his face.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you so enamored with him?” That was Kabuto’s voice. The man ( _reptile, legless lizard, two-inch gecko_ ) was tucking a vial of clear liquid into his pack at a safe distance. He looked pleased.

Obito’s fingers wound underneath Kakashi’s chin and tilted his face toward the light. Kakashi’s spine screamed in protest. “His resemblance to Senju Tobirama is uncanny.”

Kabuto frowned. “But you aren’t Madara.”

Obito let out a breathy chuckle that hissed around the edge of the mask and scraped the side of Kakashi’s face. “Perhaps not, but it does add to the aesthetic, doesn’t it?”

 

 

Obito released him in the center of the apartment. Kakashi promptly collapsed to his knees, racked by full-body shudders and hyperventilating. 

“Shh, shh, it’s okay.” Obito knelt and wrapped his arms around the shaking man. “You’re home now.”

_Home?_ The word felt wrong ( _thisisn’thome_ ) but Kakashi was too tired to care. His head was throbbing and his neck burned. He squeezed his eye shut and let Obito rub circles into his back. He felt the brush of lips on his forehead.

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to leave again for at least another week.”

Kakashi hated that the statement was soothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. Mostly to Kakashi.
> 
> People keep asking me whether Kakashi will get a happy ending or not and, to be honest, I'm not yet sure. Maybe a less-than-horrible ending?
> 
> But in any case, yay Gai! :)


	8. Liabilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zetsu pops up, Obito hates plants, and Kakashi's life goes from bad to worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: Rape/Non-Con, Forced Drug Use

 

“He’s a liability,” Zetsu said.

Obito raised an eyebrow. The overhyped plant was leaning against the wall of the Akatsuki hideout, black-half hidden in the shadow cast by the Gedo statue. Obito returned his attention to the kunai he was sharpening. “That _liability_ got us Kabuto’s cooperation without sacrificing Sasuke. We gained a pawn while preserving another. He’s useful.”

“He would be if you weren’t so attached,” White griped. “Give him to Kabuto,” Black growled.

“Don’t forget your place,” Obito growled. The whetstone scraped across the kunai’s blade. “You’re just a pawn, too.”

Black Zetsu’s eye narrowed. White looked amused. “I am Madara’s will,” Black growled.

“And yet _I’m_ the one who just secured the conditions for his resurrection while mitigating our losses.” Obito held the blade up to the light and watched the edge glint. “And who knows? Kakashi might be useful in other ways. Like you said, he’d make good bait for the Kyuubi.”

Black’s lip curled over his too sharp teeth while White giggled. The contrast would have been disconcerting had Obito not known the freak for so many years. “Besides, I’m curious as to why Kabuto wants him so much—it doesn’t seem like run-of-the-mill obsession. With Kakashi returning to me after every session, I can keep an eye on what the reptile’s so interested in and preemptively counter any complications.”

“He does have a point,” White chimed.

“He does,” Black admitted, but his yellow eye gleamed, unconvinced.

“I do.” Obito changed the subject. “Has Sasuke confronted Itachi yet?”

“He is close,” White said. “Deidara is keen to follow and your clone has been doing a poor job of keeping him away.”

Obito sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That kid has way more energy than anyone needs.”

Zetsu cocked his head. “Deidara or Sasuke?”

“Both.” Obito stood. “We _need_ Sasuke and Itachi to meet so that one of them kills the other. Knowing Itachi, he’ll let Sasuke win, which—while regrettable—is unavoidable. At least we’ll get a Mangekyō out of it. In the meantime, Deidara and my clone will pursue the Nanabi while the Zombie Duo finds that annoyingly flighty Rokubi.”

“Kakuzu has his eye on the Twelve Guardians and he’s only gotten one so far. He won’t be happy to let those bounties go,” White mused.

Obito waved his hand dismissively. “The Rokubi’s bounty is nothing to scoff at. Tell Kakuzu he can have the body after we extract the bijuu.”

“What of the Hachibi and Kyuubi?”

“ _Patience_ , Zetsu. We can only seal one beast at a time. No point in capturing them only to give them a month or more to escape. It wouldn’t be cost-effective.” Obito watched as frustration flashed across Black Zetsu’s face. The plant really should have invested in a mask.

“As you wish,” White answered for his other half. “Until next time, Tobi-san!” Zetsu receded into the wall.

Obito contemplated the Gedo statue for a moment. Yes, he decided, Zetsu would have to go. Soon. A grin crossed his face as he imagined Madara returning to this plane of existence only to realize that the damn imposter was still alive. Zetsu’s forged tablet may have been able to pass muster under one Mangekyō, but not two, and certainly not under the eyes of someone as dedicated to forging a better world as Obito was. (Teenage Obito may or may not have taken a bit of extra pleasure in proving Madara wrong.)

They had never been able to decipher whom or _what_ Zetsu served, but whatever it was, neither Uchiha had _any_ intention of letting it back into this world. Nonetheless, Zetsu had been handy enough to keep around. It took care of the nitty-gritty work that Obito didn’t want to do.

Speaking of which, it was high-time Obito escaped home to his far more pleasant passion project. 

He removed the mask as he stepped out of kamui and quietly placed it on the table. Kakashi was curled up on the couch asleep, face buried in the sleeve of his yukata. Obito found it both amusing and annoying that _that_ was his bed of choice and not the actual bed.

Kakashi, much to Obito’s delight, had grown into his thirties well. He was handsome, sure, but more importantly, he was beautiful: face angular, skin porcelain, silver hair nearly iridescent. Even the scars marring his form (some smaller than a coin, others the length of Obito’s forearm) were closer to spider’s silk than they were to actual scars. Had Obito been less certain of his purpose or less sure of Kakashi’s numerous failings, he might have felt insecure.

He shrugged off his cloak and sat down on the empty side of the couch.

Kakashi’s eye snapped open. He stayed still, staring Obito down, his breathing intentionally erratic. Obito smiled internally as he realized what the other was testing.

“Bakashi, I’m not gonna use that technique on you today. I already told you, it’s only for when we go visit our new ally.”

Kakashi’s flinch was full-bodied. His breathing evened out to barely faster than at-ease.

Obito smiled. “But let’s not talk about that now. Come here.”

“I am here,” Kakashi bit back, but it was weak.

Obito glowered at him nonetheless. “You know what I mean.”

Slowly the silverette uncurled himself and shifted so that he was sitting beside Obito.

“You aren’t wearing the kimono,” Obito observed.

Kakashi’s glare was lethal. “I am not wearing that thing.”

“But it looks good on you.”

Kakashi stared at the opposite wall, resolutely quiet.

Obito rolled his eye and sighed. He pulled Kakashi sideways into his lap and pressed a burst of chakra into the back of the collar when the man snarled and tried to twist away. Kakashi went limp. Obito laid him carefully over his knees, lower back supported on one thigh and head curled into the bend of Obito’s arm. The glazed look in his eye was beautiful, Obito thought. Entirely devoid of pain and fear. Devoid of deceit, even for just a moment.

Then the gray eye sharpened and Kakashi as he was—horribly misled, flawed, and corrupt—snapped back into place. He didn’t try to move though. Obito began to comb a hand through silver hair.

“I think that when Rin and I have kids I’ll let you play with them,” he mused. “It’ll be more for you than for them, obviously, seeing as you’re the one who will need socializing, but I still think it’d be nice. Rin won’t know who you are, of course, not really. She’ll know your name, but I don’t want her reliving anything traumatic, and you were nothing if not traumatic for her. You understand, right?”

“Rin is dead.”

It must have been the twelfth time Kakashi had said that. Either he was trying to goad Obito into killing him or he had the thickest skull this side of the continent. Obito dug his fingers into Kakashi’s hair and twisted. His ex-teammate hissed in pain. He made to push himself up. Obito slammed him back down with a touch of mokuton.

“You know better than to say things like that, Bakashi. Don’t you?” Obito twisted harder.

“ _Y-yes._ ”

Obito relaxed his grip and the mokuton receded. He resumed combing Kakashi’s hair. “Why don’t you like the kimono?”

Kakashi’s chest was shuddering slightly. “It’s uncomfortable.”

Obito hummed. Kakashi’s bald-faced lies were cute. “I’ll tie the obi less tightly next time we go out, then.”

Another full-bodied flinch. God, who knew Kabuto would be useful on so many fronts?

“Please don’t make me.” Kakashi sounded small.

“Make you what? Go outside? I thought you wanted that.”

Kakashi stumbled over his words. “Not— _no,_ I mean…you _know_ what I mean. Please, don’t make me go back _there_.”

“Oh, I see.” Obito cupped the other’s chin in his hand. “You don’t want to go back to being what you were before you came here.”

Kakashi’s eye sparked with defiance. “ ** _No_** , I—”

Obito shushed him with a vice-like grip. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Kakashi, I really am, but that’s all you’ve ever been to this world,” he crooned. “A tool. An experiment. Did you know that Konoha officially declared you dead months ago? They held a funeral. Large and military and forgotten the next day by everyone except a handful.”

The realization that Konoha had given up on him (abandoned him (forgotten him (moved on from him (condemned him)))) did something beautiful to the defiance in Kakashi’s eye. Made it shudder and wilt like a plucked flower.

Obito continued to stroke the other’s jaw even as he held it forcefully closed with chakra-enhanced digits. “Minato-sensei’s son bawled. The pink-haired one was more reserved about it, but her cheeks stayed tear-stained for days. Don’t worry, though, I’ve kept an eye on them.”

Fear and—was that anger? Oh, delightful—sparked in Kakashi’s gray eye.

“They’ve moved on fine. To be quite honest, they’ve made more headway in the last few months than they ever did with you. Who knows, Naruto might even be a challenge to kill.”

He saw Kakashi tense the second before he lunged. Obito let kamui sap his tangibility and watched claws phase through his throat. Then he grabbed Kakashi’s wrist and snapped it.

The yowl that ripped from Kakashi’s chest was inhuman. It turned into an equally vicious snarl, his too-sharp teeth flashing in the light as he made to rip out Obito’s larynx. He hadn’t broken yet and, if Obito was again being honest, he was glad.

Obito let go of the snapped wrist, twisted, and kicked his ex-teammate hard in the ribs. One cracked. Kakashi flew through the air. His shoulder slammed against the bedframe. Bruised, but not fractured. 

Obito flipped over the armrest and blocked Kakashi’s (admittedly well-executed) jab. “Y’know, I dismissed one of Zetsu’s ideas off-hand earlier,” he said conversationally, slipping past a kick aimed at his stomach. “But now I’m wondering if I didn’t give it enough thought.”

Kakashi sliced upward with his good hand. Obito dodged and caught him in a chokehold, then twisted and slammed him down against the bed. He pressed the silverette’s face into the mattress with enough force to ensure he couldn’t breathe and tightened his grip when Kakashi spasmed violently.

“Zetsu said that we should be pursuing the Kyuubi alongside the other jinchuuriki, even though we can only seal one beast at a time. I reminded him that storing the containers until we’re ready for extraction would be inefficient, but I just had a brilliant idea.” 

Obito flipped Kakashi onto his back and let the mokuton take over. Wood curled out from the bedframe in tendrils, pinning the other’s limbs flush to the mattress. It temporarily splinted the broken wrist. Another branch crept over the chest and pulled the rib back into place. Kakashi was gasping for breath, eye slightly glazed from pain and oxygen-deprivation. Obito tapped the collar around his neck. He relished the _ting_ that his nails made against the metal.

“I could just have another one of these made! Then Naruto could come see you before he dies—before he dies in this world, that is. Believe me, I have every intention of bringing him back and letting him live out life to the fullest. I just don’t know exactly when that will be.” Obito nodded. “He seems like a nice kid.”

“ ** _Stay away from him_.**” 

Had he not been restrained, Obito was 100% sure that Kakashi would have continued his attempts to rip him limb-from-limb, which was interesting given that it had been a while since Kakashi had overtly tried to kill him. And right now he had an even more infinitesimal chance of success than usual. “Is this that ‘pack instinct’ the canine clans are famous for?” Obito wondered aloud. “Because you seem to have abandoned rationality.”

Kakashi snarled again.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Obito sighed and made his way to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. He heard a muffled yelp behind him as the mokuton formed a makeshift gag. “I think you need to calm down. You’re gonna make your wrist worse.”

Had Kakashi been able to lift his head, Obito was sure he would have felt the other’s accusatory glare on his back. As it was, he just heard a low growl.

Obito was beginning to measure out the tea and water when he had a brilliant idea. He grinned and, continuing as if nothing had happened, slipped a small, dusty box out from the back of the cabinet. “I was just kidding about the collar bit, y’know. It’d be far too much trouble to make a seal capable of containing that much chakra for that long. Your reserves are small so they’re easy to manage, but the Kyuubi’s? Nah.” Leaving the tea to steep (he hadn’t made this particular tea in a while), he wandered back to the bed.

Kakashi’s glare was murderous. Obito frowned and ran his fingers through the silver hair. Kakashi tried to jerk away. Obito let the mokuton tighten until the itinerant former-nin let out a hiss of pain. The broken wrist was already starting to turn purple. 

“Despite having been a science experiment for the past few months and having had your chakra sealed, you pack a surprisingly good punch, Bakashi. I’m proud of you.” Obito let his hand trail down Kakashi’s chest. “You need to relax, though—it’s important for the adjustment period—and I don’t think I’ve given you the proper chance to do so.” He let his hand drag lower. “You look _lovely_ like this, you know.”

Kakashi’s breath hitched and anxiety flickered in his eye. He searched Obito’s face as if searching for some hint of… well, Obito wasn’t sure what.

Obito smiled and leaned down to kiss his project’s forehead. “I’ll get you the tea.”

He brought it out in an ornate porcelain cup. From the look in Kakashi’s eye, Obito knew that he could smell it. _All_ of it. “This is a special blend from Rice Country. The working women use it to unwind.” Obito sat down on the mattress cross-legged and waited as the mokuton adjusted Kakashi into a seated position. He couldn’t have his project choking. At least, not on tea. 

He chuckled at his own joke.

The vicious anger had dissolved into something more akin to bewilderment. Kakashi’s one gray eye was narrowed, as if to say: _you wouldn’t dare._

“Oh, don’t look so upset. You’ll be loving it in a few minutes. It works fast, this stuff, and feels much better than genjutsu. Now behave.”

Obito let the mokuton gag recede so Kakashi could drink.

“Obito,” he sounded terrified and furious all at once. His teeth were carefully gritted. “Don’t do this, please, I—”

Obito dropped his scarred hand to Kakashi’s broken wrist and squeezed. Kakashi let out a strangled gasp. Obito took the opportunity to pour the entire cup down his throat and clamp his palm over the other’s mouth and nose. Kakashi’s chest heaved as he tried to spit the liquid out, limbs shuddering in their restraints and pupil blown wide. “Swallow,” Obito said.

It took thirty more seconds of struggling and terror for Kakashi to finally give in. Obito smiled as he removed his hand. The other gasped in its absence and tried to dry heave. Nothing more than a few strands of saliva came out.

“W-why now? Why would you do that _now_?” 

“I was saving it for a rainy day.” Obito felt a flutter of satisfaction as he watched goosebumps begin to break out over the silverette’s skin, a sure sign of the drug making itself comfortable. “I’ve used it a few times myself. The first couple minutes are always a little strange, but believe me, it works.”

Obito caressed Kakashi’s jaw and laughed at the other’s attempt to bite him. The drug would be entering his bloodstream right about now. 

“It’s funny, you know. I figure I should’ve expected something along the lines of pack instinct—I mean, I have _met_ the Inuzuka before—but it took me by surprise.” Obito frowned and mulled the statement over for a moment. “No, no, that’s not right. What took me by surprise was the fact that you consider a child who thinks you’re six-feet-under to be more ‘pack’ than you do _me_.”

Kakashi inhaled sharply. Obito watched, delighted, as guilt crossed his ex-teammate’s features. His skin had begun to flush pink—part-chemical, but mostly shame.

“Did I ever tell you how many whores I went through trying to approximate you?” Obito reached down between Kakashi’s legs and began to stroke the inner part of his thighs. Kakashi let out a strangled gasp. He seemed to want to say something, but the drug had already have entered the phase that made coherent sentences difficult to produce. “They were mostly in and around Kumo,” Obito continued. “It’s hard to find hair like yours outside Lightning Country.”

The Uchiha moved his hand higher and grinned as he felt Kakashi’s member harden under his touch. Three weeks of having the Hatake to himself and all it took to finally get a physical reaction was a little aphrodisiac. Honestly, why had he ever refrained from using it in the first place? Perhaps he’d had some grandiose illusion that Kakashi would be able to get over this first wall without help. No, no, Kakashi’s little outburst had made Obito realize that he was too broken for that. His project needed a catalyst.

Obito let the mokuton recede, save for the splint stabilizing Kakashi’s broken wrist, and chuckled as a hand now racked by tremors pushed against his chest. It had none of the strength of before. Obito pinned it gently over Kakashi’s head. The single gray eye was hazy now, pupil dilated and focus barely there. Obito gave his member a hard squeeze through the cloth of the yukata and watched, delighted, as Kakashi’s back arched and his eyelashes fluttered.

“See? All better.”

Kakashi murmured something unintelligible. It sounded like the word “smoke.”

“I’ve only had this high a dose once. I bet speaking is hard for you right now, isn’t it?”

A light sheen of sweat was beginning to coat the Hatake’s skin. Obito’s hand stopped pumping and ran over his project’s ( _lover’s?_ ) hips to the tie of his yukata. He undid it slowly, carefully, letting his hands linger on Kakashi’s bare skin and tracing the curves of lean muscle, before letting the yukata fall open completely. “You’ll enjoy this, I promise. It won’t be like last time.” Obito leaned down to press himself flush against Kakashi’s thinner, more sinuous form, grinding their crotches together rhythmically.

Kakashi gasped, obviously still trying to reel in his responses. And that’s what made it so satisfying. That gray eye was glazed and unfocused, but at some level it was still _aware_. Aware of how ashamed Kakashi was and yet also of how desperately he wanted to feel and be felt, because the wonderful thing about this particular aphrodisiac was that it didn’t overwrite your sense. It just made you _want_. It made you want more than you’d ever wanted before, and right now all Kakashi wanted and could ever conceive of having wanted was to be fucked, despite the shame, despite the voice screaming inside his head that this was wrong.

Obito would know. He’d been in the same position once.

A low keening noise escaped Kakashi’s throat despite his best efforts. His cheeks burned red.

Obito kissed each one long and slow and wiped away the tears gathering under Kakashi’s eyes (both of them) with his tongue. “It’s okay, Bakashi. The next few hours will be the best of your life and when you wake up next, you’ll realize that it’s not just me who wants you here, but you too.”

Kakashi half-hiccuped a sob, half-moaned in pleasure when Obito took his cock in hand and began to stroke. The Uchiha kissed his lower lip. Kakashi, finally, kissed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that happened. Tune in next time for more suffering and, if you're lucky, a bit of Gai!
> 
> As always, thank you for leaving comments in spite of the torture I'm putting all of you and Kakashi through. I really enjoy hearing what you guys think.


	9. The Caved-In Roof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi has a dream. Ino gets a few leads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please pay attention to the story CWs.
> 
> Feat. Kakashi's guilt complex and the very strange team dynamic of Gai-Neji-Ino-Sai.

The rain pattered against the thatched roof of their lean-to. “When do you think Minato-sensei will be back?” Rin asked. Her voice sounded like bells. Her thigh was pressed against Kakashi’s.

Kakashi couldn’t quite remember why Minato-sensei had left in the first place. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. He’ll come back eventually.” Obito’s orange goggles were around his neck. His thigh was pressed against Kakashi’s too. “This is sort of fun anyway. It’s like we’re camping.”

A drop of water fell onto Kakashi’s nose. “The rain is starting to get through.”

“Let’s play a game,” said Rin.

“What kind of game?” Obito asked.

“A trading game,” she replied.

Another drop hit Kakashi’s face. Then another. The rain was getting heavier. “We should fix the roof,” Kakashi said.

“What should we trade?” Obito asked. 

“Well, someone has to lose something first so we know what to trade,” said Rin, as if it were obvious.

“But we haven’t lost anything,” said Obito.

“Sure we have.” 

Kakashi felt Rin’s hand on his cheek.

“Kakashi lost an eye.”

Kakashi blinked. Rin was right. The place where his left eye had been was cold and wet.

Obito clucked his tongue. “Well then I’ll give him mine.”

“That’s a good trade,” said Rin. She plucked Obito’s left eye from his skull. Kakashi watched her guide it to his face. Then he saw out of it. “Now Obito has lost something,” she continued. “So Kakashi needs to trade him something back to make it fair.”

Kakashi looked down at himself, then turned to look at her. “But I don’t have anything.”

“Oh.” 

Rin sounded disappointed. Kakashi didn’t want her to sound disappointed. 

“That’s okay. Then I guess I’ll go next.” Rin raised her hand to her chest and pressed into it. Ribs cracked. More rain hit Kakashi’s face. They really needed to fix the roof. Rin pulled out her still-beating heart and handed it to Obito. He thanked her. She smiled at Kakashi, teeth stained bloody. “See? You can always find something to trade.”

“But what if I can’t?” Kakashi asked because he vaguely knew that he didn’t want to reach into his own ribcage. The rain was slipping through the thatch in streams now. It was warm.

“Then all of this will have been for nothing, silly,” she said. “Your turn.”

“But I really don’t have anything,” Kakashi repeated. When was Minato-sensei coming back, again?

“Sure you do,” Rin said. She tilted her head and looked him up and down. Kakashi could see through the hole in her chest where her heart used to be.

“But I… I don’t want to.”

The smile slipped from her face. “Oh. I guess he’ll just have to take it then.”

On Kakashi’s other side, Obito sighed. Kakashi felt a scarred hand on the back of his neck. “That’s too bad. I was hoping he’d do it on his own, too.”

The roof groaned and split. Blood poured in.

 

 

Kakashi shot up in bed gasping. It took five breaths to clear the nonexistant copper from his lungs.

“Bad dream?” Obito stood in the kitchen dressed in his Akatsuki cloak.

_You started what led to that._

Kakashi shoved the voice aside. “H-how long was I asleep?” God, he sounded weak. Why did he have to sound so weak?

“A little over fourteen hours. You really tired yourself out.” Obito grinned as he lifted a cup of tea to his lips.

Kakashi flinched.

Obito snorted derisively. “It’s a good thing that Konoha’s already given up on you. I can’t imagine them recovering their prized little Copy-nin only to realize that he can’t stand the sight of _tea_.”

Kakashi hated that he agreed.

Obito was cinnamon again. None of the smoke that had crept up when he’d— Kakashi clamped down on the thought. He didn’t want to think about that. Not yet. He’d process when Obito wasn’t present. 

“I made you breakfast since your movements are inhibited right now.” Obito waved his hand almost apologetically. “I’m still shit at medical ninjutsu despite the mangekyo.”

Kakashi looked down to see his chest bandaged and his right hand firmly splinted in a mokuton cast. A dull, full-bodied ache swelled every time he inhaled.

Obito placed a bowl of soup on the table and made a beckoning motion. “Come on.”

_Did you drug that too?_ Kakashi couldn’t find the energy to ask. He stood slowly, making sure to keep the sheet wrapped around his waist. Obito rolled his eye at that, but said nothing, just watched Kakashi shuffle toward the table with barely concealed tremors running down his limbs. As he sat, Kakashi wondered why he felt so calm.

_Shock_ , his brain supplied from some Academy course he’d half-forgotten. He picked up the spoon without glancing at the Uchiha who sat beside him with his chin propped up on his scarred hand. He began to eat.

The soup was flavorless and thin. His chest hurt.

“How are you feeling?”

Kakashi ignored the question and continued eating. The broth reflected the light like some of the muddier lakes in southern Fire Country did. He wondered if they still smelled of lilies and volcanic silt and…was that smoke?

Kakashi’s head dipped before he could help it and the words escaped unbidden from his lips, “I’m just tired.” He watched Obito’s posture relax once more. The smoke subsided back into cinnamon. An unwanted hand began to rub circles into his lower back, yet Kakashi couldn’t bring himself to care. Obito had already touched that part anyway.

_Shock_ , his brain reminded him.

“I know, I know. Hopefully you won’t have to use that high a dose again.” Obito hummed. “Small doses, sure, but that’s just for fun.”

Kakashi’s mind wandered back to those muddy lakes. They weren’t popular like the crystal clear pools of northeastern Fire Country. Maybe that’s why Kakashi enjoyed them so much. His ninken would run and bark and swim without worrying about some nearby resort or a nobleman’s spur-of-the-moment picnic, all the while he’d float half-submerged under lilypads, warm water soaking into his bones. 

Kakashi missed his ninken. He knew his ninken missed him too. As contract summons, they’d know he wasn’t dead because the contract would remain unbroken.

Wait.

_They’d know he wasn’t dead._

The emptiness that had so thoroughly eaten away his insides since last night sputtered and choked on something that wasn’t quite hope and wasn’t quite fear, because no one _other than him_ could summon them, but he’d take absolutely anything over nothing at all. 

“I got you a present,” he heard Obito say.

The pressure of the Uchiha’s hand disappeared from Kakashi’s back. He watched carefully as Obito strolled across the room and plucked something silver-and-silk from the wardrobe. He let it unfurl. It was another kimono, just simpler and, thank God, less overtly feminine.

“You’ll still wear the other one when we go out, of course, but I thought you’d like something less formal for around the house.”

“A yukata would have sufficed,” Kakashi said quietly, carefully, and was pleased to hear his voice stay level.

“Well, it might have _sufficed_ —” Obito rolled his eye at the word. “—but it wouldn’t have added the same flair. Seeing as you can’t just chidori people in the chest anymore, you’re gonna have to learn other ways to stand out.”

Kakashi kept his eye trained firmly on the soup. “As a doll, you mean?” He smelled Obito’s irritation before he heard it. 

“Only if you can’t manage anything else.”

Oh, Obito was underestimating him. But for now he stood, letting the bedsheet drop and letting himself disassociate just enough to fix Obito in a blank stare that ignored how the Uchiha didn’t bother to hide his appreciative grin. “Best give it here, then,” he muttered.

A trade, Rin had said. 

Well, Obito would get more than he’d fucking bargained for.

 

 

This mission was eating Ino from the inside out, devouring her lungs, intestines, and spleen only to regurgitate them and start anew in a vicious cycle of anxiety, anger, and grief. 

Once again, she thanked whatever twist of fate had made Gai-sensei request her over Shikamaru. Whereas Nara flickered like the shadows they manipulated, Yamanaka were vessels built of steel, as required by their T&I specialty, so that no matter how eaten away she might become, she knew she would finish the mission.

She would finish the mission if she did it from beyond the grave.

Ino let her mind wander back to the morning they’d set out from Konoha.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Sakura had grumbled, chin propped up on the pillow. Her hair stuck out in cotton candy tufts, the victim of humidity and a late night shift that had kept her out until three a.m. Now it was barely past six.

A year ago, if someone had told Ino that she’d have fallen head-over-heels for her childhood friend-turned-rival and moved in with her at barely seventeen, Ino would have snorted and flipped her ponytail in their face. Yet here she was. Totally smitten.

“I’ve been assigned to help Gai-sensei evaluate Fire Country’s defenses,” Ino lied through her teeth as she smiled and brushed strands of pink hair from green eyes. “I meant to tell you last night but your shift ran long.”

Sakura frowned and without missing a beat, asked, “When will you be back?”

Ino suppressed a snort. Ever the practical one, her girlfriend. The humor of the situation helped Ino brace herself for what would come next. “I don’t know. Maybe two months? More? It depends on what we find.”

“…two _months?_ ”

“I’m sorry.” Ino’s fingers lingered on Sakura’s cheek.

After a tense moment, Sakura sighed. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not like it’s your fault.” She leaned into Ino’s touch. “It’s Tsunade-shishou’s. So I’ll pour her booze out the window and smash her favorite shot glass.” Sakura’s grin was lethal.

Ah, yes, Ino smiled, happy memories.

She finished sorting through the memories of the ex-Sound shinobi kneeling at her feet and snapped his neck. She took a moment to collect herself, then turned to her captain.

The first time she’d done this, she’d hesitated. Had nearly bolted. Because how could she recount to a man—especially to a man like Gai—the most intimate details of his best friend’s torture? Of course, now she didn’t blink twice. It was a mission, after all.

She watched Gai’s face harden as she spoke. Not because the intel was horrifying (it was), but because it didn’t contain anything _new_. Although… “The shinobi did encounter an Akatsuki member several times while working in the southeastern lab. Zetsu. We know very little about him, but we suspect he operates primarily as a spy. Even more so after Sasori’s death.” Ino suppressed a proud upturn of her tone at that last bit. “I suggest we widen the scope of our attention to include his movements. He seems to have had dealings with Orochimaru that we previously overlooked. Perhaps Zetsu will yield an unexpected lead on Kakashi-sensei.”

It wasn’t much, and Ino knew it, but she couldn’t help but smile when Gai-sensei broke out in a grin. “Yosh! Then let us rejoin our comrades. I am certain young Neji and young Sai have had enough time to scour that traitorous lord’s palace for clues!”

Ino felt her smile widen. She’d taken great pleasure in watching Sai obliterate the local lord’s head before Maito Gai had even finished pronouncing his death sentence. The gore might have been unsightly on the silk banisters, but it felt good to see Sai react so promptly and with such enthusiasm. The horrors of the child-trafficking ring hidden in the lord’s cellars were nothing to scoff at and apparently they’d hit a chord in him.

Their strange misfit team had yet to find Kakashi, but damn if they weren’t doing a good job of finding outlets for their rage in the meantime.

Currently, they were passing through what amounted to a noble resort town. C- and B-rank missing-nin who’d been hired under-the-table were common here––bodyguards, assassins, decent cooks, etc. That in itself was _heavily_ frowned upon by Fire Country’s local hidden village (to whom all Fire Country business should be directed), but it did help to have another reason to punish the transgressors. Child-trafficking, racketeering, the like––it was all fair game. Unlike in a smaller or poorer town, something as minor as breaking health standards wouldn’t be enough to “correct” an errant citizen, but in such a decadent place as this, more serious faults were not difficult to find.

Take the tea shop that they visited later that day, for example. On the outside absolutely inoffensive. Lovely, even. Ino was quite partial to the lavender rooibos. However, a bit of investigation would reveal the illegal import of seeds from Lightning Country, on whom Fire Country was currently levying a trade embargo. This, of course, could not be allowed to pass.

“F-forgive me, please.” The shop-owner groveled among the weeds. “I didn’t know! The waiter, Daiki, _he_ handles our shipments. _He_ must have done it.” He pointed his finger accusingly at the lean twenty-something cowering against the bamboo walls of the shop.

Ino crouched down and smiled sweetly. The shop-owner looked at her askance.

“Y-you believe me, don’t you?” he stuttered, swiping his tongue over chapped lips.

“Of course, owner-san.”

“Then you’ll punish him, not m-me?”

“Oh, no, owner-san.” Ino clucked her tongue and shook her head. “How could we let a poor waiter take full responsibility for what his better should have been handling? Now, that just wouldn’t be fair. And, of course, that’s not even mentioning those ex-Sound shinobi that you hired to protect the shipment, despite the fact that the daimyo has specifically forbidden Fire Country citizens from doing so. That _was_ you, wasn’t it, owner-san? Or was it the waiter again?”

The shop-owner began blubbering.

Neji groaned and probably rolled his eyes, not that Ino could tell. He was leaning against the doorframe, a cup of jasmine tea in his hands. “Do you always take this long to execute a mission?” he asked disdainfully. The shop-owner sobbed harder at the word ‘execute.’ 

Ino’s fake smile dropped into a dead-pan. “Wow, you just _couldn’t_ bring yourself to let a girl have some fun, could you, Neji-kun?”

“Not when it interferes with my tea.” Neji lifted the cup to his lips and slurped obnoxiously.

Gods, Naruto really had rubbed off on him.

“Fine,” she said. “If you’re going to be such an ass about it…”

“ _N-no,_ _please_ —”

Ino’s kunai made a _slick-_ ing noise as it cut through his throat.

In the background, the waiter screamed. Neji obscenely slurped his tea.

Ino rolled her eyes and moved toward the waiter, intending to angle the cut to his jugular just right so as to spray blood on the hem of Neji’s pant-leg.

“Wait, wait,” the waiter (Daiki, the shop-owner had called him, right?) was crying. “I can _help_ you. I know things, I, I _must_ know things. No one minds a waiter! And I’ve served the most powerful people in the country. I’ve _heard_ things.”

Ino paused in front of him. “And what exactly have you heard?”

The waiter swallowed heavily. “T-to much to explain here. If you’d just let me—”

“Hm,” Ino cut him off. “Good thing I’m a Yamanaka, then.” She made a quick seal, heard Neji groan again, and grinned as she slipped into Daiki’s mindscape.

 

 

Daiki had, in fact, seen and heard useful things. Perhaps Konoha would send a team or two to follow up on his insights. Lords were, after all, a corrupt breed. She was filing away the last of his memories when something caught her eye. She rolled back the feed of information and stopped it on what appeared to be a moment from last week. 

Was… was that an Uchiha?

The man’s face was rounder and older than Sasuke’s, certainly, but the dark eyes, dark hair, and moon-pale skin were unmistakeable, as was the spark of something a little less than sane in the depths of his irises.

Ino turned to look at the Uchiha look-alike’s companion. A woman, veiled and silent. _They didn’t seem to get along,_ the waiter’s mind supplied. _They were tense, balanced on the razor’s edge._

Ino watched as the woman began to down cup after cup of tea as the man watched her with a disturbing grin.

_If they hadn’t left a moment later,_ the waiter piped up again, eager to have found something that caught her attention, _we would have asked them to leave. The other guests had begun to feel uncomfortable. I thought they were a strange pair from the very beginning, I did. Something off about them, you see—_

Ino exited the mindscape and watched the waiter drop back against the wall, stuttering and gasping for breath. Then she slit his throat too. 

 

 

“Anything interesting?” Neji asked on the way back to the quarters they’d appropriated from the child-trafficking lord. 

Ino pursed her lips and cocked her head slightly, staring at the distant horizon where the sun was just starting to dip below the tree-line. “Perhaps. Do you happen to know if the Uchiha had any distant branch clans? Or maybe a propensity for affairs?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will stan Sakura, Ino, Tsunade, and the series' other kunoichi until the end of time. Get ready for women being BAMFs. (Also, Ino/Sakura gives me life, so please send fic recommendations my way). 
> 
> As always, please read&review! Your comments (no matter how short) make my day.


	10. Breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gai's team has a breakthrough, Obito learns more about Orochimaru's experiments, and Kakashi breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After an unplanned break, "Fair Trade" is back! As always, please pay attention to the CWs and tags. They are there for a reason.
> 
> This is a short but important chapter. I will try to update more regularly so that the time between posts isn't as long!

“Show me again.”

Ino obliged, closing her eyes and forming the hand seals. She placed her palm on Gai’s forehead and let them slip into the memory.

The (deceased) waiter had served the strange pair nine days ago—a man like an Uchiha and a woman covered head-to-toe in silk. Ino hadn’t paid the latter much mind because, honestly, the appearance of an Uchiha look-alike was jarring, but Gai had quickly corrected that inclination. _Focus on what you can’t see_ , he’d advised, _because what you can see is always manufactured_. 

To be frank, though, it was disconcerting the level of unease that Gai exuded every time he looked at the woman in silk. Especially when she began to drink her tea. Ino followed his focus to way the woman tipped her head back just slightly before the cup disappeared under the veil. The other hand followed, not even touching the porcelain and yet neither was it poised to catch the cup should it fall. It was an unnecessary movement, sure, almost as if the woman were pulling something down on her already veiled face, but Ino didn’t understand why it was worthy of so many replays.

“Enough.”

Well, not worthy of any more replays.

Ino opened her eyes to the real world. She was sitting cross-legged across from Gai, who had yet to open his eyes. His forehead was creased and he was frowning. Sai and Neji stood on the other side of the room, watching.

Gai finally opened his eyes. “When, exactly, were they here?” His voice was eerily level.

“Early afternoon, eight days ago.”

“Had they visited before?”

“No.”

“Have they visited since?”

“No.”

Gai folded his hands together as if he were about to crack his knuckles and held them there. “Names?”

“None. The man implied he was a lord, the woman his wife––”

“Not a woman.”

Ino frowned despite herself. “What do you mean?”

Gai’s knuckles finally cracked. “That’s not a woman.” He stood sharply. Ino followed. “Neji, scan again within a fifteen kilometer radius. More closely this time. Look for signs of shinobi activity.” He snapped his fingers. “Ino, Sai, locate everyone who was in the teashop that day and discreetly access their memories. Identify and record any sign of the suspected Uchiha and his companion. Eliminate witnesses if you are unable to cover the intrusion.”

Sai tilted his head, but nodded. Neji, however, looked concerned. “Gai-sensei,” Ino began haltingly, since apparently no one else was going to do it. “What did you see?”

“Kakashi. I saw Kakashi.”

 

 

Kabuto was a clever man, Obito had to admit. Even a visionary in some respects. Really, who would’ve thought to use a latent kekkai genkai to map, tear apart, and weld back together the physiology and psyche of a highly-trained jonin? Of course, one half of Obito wanted to rip Kabuto limb from limb for ever daring to _touch_ Kakashi, but the other half (the more pragmatic half) recognized how absolutely marvelous it all was. 

“And he really doesn’t know who I am right now?”

“He couldn’t remember his own name right now,” replied Kabuto as he relocked Kakashi’s struggling arm into the restraints. The silverette was dressed in a loose-fitting hospital gown with various easy-to-access snaps and a muzzle covered the lower half of his face in a brutal mockery of his (long-gone, never-coming-back) mask. A seal kept the sharingan from snapping open to sear the events into Kakashi’s brain, but the other eye was wide and panicked.

Obito frowned behind his mask and tilted his head. “He looks scared.”

“Yes, we were never able to work past that.” Kabuto sounded disappointed. He clipped the back of Kakashi’s muzzle to a ring on the table to prevent him from jerking around too much. “By hyper-activating the Hatake bloodline, we’re able shut down his higher reasoning functions, but doing so flips some sort of failsafe. To be quite honest, the panic makes it difficult for any of our edits to take.”

When Kabuto had informed him that Orochimaru’s experiments had involved conjointly manipulating Kakashi’s chakra system and emotional state so as to alter the very core of his being, Obito had seriously considered separating the medic-nin’s head from his body. Only Kabuto’s assurance that Obito could sit in and offer suggestions (as a good faith gesture in their partnership) had kept Kabuto in one piece and Madara’s resurrection plan on track. 

Sure, Kabuto was most definitely hiding something up his sleeve. “It’s an opportunity to test the malleability of the human mind in relation to its vessel” was a weak excuse to explain the medic-nin’s fervor upon rediscovering Kakashi last week, but Obito was sufficiently intrigued. After all, this was how Orochimaru had conditioned that delightful yield reflex that kicked in whenever someone grabbed Kakashi by the back of the neck. 

And even better, Kakashi wouldn’t _remember_. 

No resentment, no pesky bad memories to dwell on at night. 

Just results.

And if things went a way Obito didn’t like and he was forced to take drastic action against Yakushi Kabuto (Zetsu’s nagging be damned), Kakashi would wake up to a lovely surprise. What an overwhelmingly win-win situation.

Obito combed his gloved fingers through Kakashi’s hair and ignored the ugly thing that twisted in his gut.

“Hm.” Kabuto hummed. “He likes you.”

Sure enough, the touch had calmed Kakashi considerably. The silverette was now staring up at him with something like bewilderment.

Of course, bewilderment might have been too complicated an emotion to assign to Kakashi in this state.

As best as Obito understood it, the Hatake kekkai genkai was much like the Inuzuka’s, just more understated. It only emerged in moments of intense stress, but when it did, the Hatake’s chakra pathways flared so intensely that the influx of chakra (“white chakra,” Kabuto had said) affected the surrounding tissue. This not only gave the Hatake a much needed power boost in moments of danger, but also allowed them to survive grievous injury with little trouble. Chakra would either heal the wound or pump the shinobi’s system so full of adrenaline that they wouldn’t care.

“In fact,” Kabuto had mused, “the Hatake bloodline is likely what allowed Kakashi-kun to survive the sharingan transplant he received as an adolescent. A normal shinobi’s immune system would have rejected the transplanted tissue almost immediately—horrific process, really. Trust me, I’ve seen it—but Orochimaru-sama’s records show that Kakashi-kun exhibited no negative reaction whatsoever. Seeing as it was a field transplant, Orochimaru-sama theorized that stress induced the kekkai genkai to surface and assimilate the eye. Of course, the assimilation wasn’t perfect. Kakashi-kun still can’t shut his sharingan off, but at the very least he didn’t die.”

Obito thanked whatever cruel gods might exist for that stroke of luck. If Kakashi had died from his eye, Obito didn’t know what he would have done.

On the opposite side of the table, Kabuto brushed up against Kakashi’s bare skin as he moved to grab a syringe off the shelf and—to Obito’s delight—Kakashi immediately tensed, straining against his bonds, eye alight with terror once more. 

What a lovely contrast to how he’d reacted when _Obito_ had touched him. 

He smoothed down Kakashi’s hair once more and relished when the silverette relaxed into his touch.

And Obito suddenly had a lovely idea for what he might suggest (demand) as Kabuto’s next experiment, because wouldn’t it be lovely if Kakashi reacted to _every_ touch like he had to Kabuto’s?

Well, to every touch save Obito’s, of course.

When Kabuto agreed and began, Obito had to admit that it was a brutally satisfying process. So much so that he decided Kakashi could stay an extra day or two. It’s not like he’d know the difference anyway.

 

 

It was like waking up from a nightmare, only to realize that you hadn’t woken at all. Kakashi’s nerve endings burned and throbbed as he blinked through the darkness.

_Cave_ , his sense of smell said. 

_Snake and smoke_ , it added. _…but faint._

The muzzle was on, digging into the bridge of his nose. Probably a joint decision made for different reasons––the limbless-gecko to follow in his psychotic master’s footsteps, Obito to keep Kakashi from saying things he shouldn’t.

His nerve endings pinged again as if expelling electricity. He didn’t try to sit up and instead raked his memories for some clue as to _why_ , only to find his mind fluttering on the edge of a black void.

He reached further back, to that morning (was it morning? was it even the same day?) when Obito had again seized control of his body like a puppet and again dressed him in clothes that made him not him, all while whispering praisesthat _weren’t_ praises in Kakashi’s ear, right up until the veil fell over his face and entirely severed Kakashi from the reflection in the mirror.

Then they’d been in a town. A different one. Poorer than the one in Fire Country, but not poor. It had smelled of northern Water Country. They’d eaten fatty sashimi cut right from the fish and lychee fruit for dessert. Kakashi had not been allowed any free movement. Obito had said that he wanted a nice meal.

And then Obito had used kamui and they’d appeared in a place that smelled of snakes, and something sharp had pricked the back of Kakashi’s neck and then––void.

Kakashi curled in on himself, clutching his head.

What had happened? Why did everything hurt? What did Kabuto do? What did _Kakashi_ do? And where was Obito? And—

_Get a hold of yourself._

Decades of training dropped down like a dam gate, separating turmoil from rationality. Kakashi uncurled himself and sat up. He was no longer shaking (he hadn’t realized he was shaking) and took stock of his situation. He was dressed in a loose hospital gown. It smelled sterile. New. His sharingan was still sealed, not that it would have been much use with the collar fastened around his neck—

Wait.

His nerve-endings weren’t expelling electricity. They were expelling _chakra_.

He raised a trembling hand to his neck, and when his fingers met bare skin, he let out a silent sob.

Gone. It was _gone._

( _Why was it gone?_ asked another voice.)

But Kakashi didn’t care to answer, because it was gone, gone,gone,gone _gone_ ** _gone_**.

A door creaked. A thin beam of light fell across the floor. Kakashi slid into a crouch and unsheathed his claws, relishing the fluidity with which his body moved, a fluidity which he’d been denied for so, _so_ long by the man who had kept him here, by the man who now kept him in that prison of an apartment, by the gecko who now was trying to cage him like a lab rat. And so, when a silhouette appeared in the doorway, Kakashi didn’t give it enough time to try.

Blood ran down his fingers as the intruder collapsed sideways, grasping the gaping hole in their throat. Light fell across golden hair and blue eyes.

“K-Kaka…-sensei?”

Naruto collapased sideways, choking on his own blood.

Ice froze in Kakashi’s veins even as the blood on his skin (Naruto’s blood) began to burn, and he watched as his student seized on the dirt floor and stopped breathing. But the red didn’t stop flowing. It didn’t stop. (It won’t stop.)

Vaguely, he felt a hand run through his hair and a voice whisper in his ear, “You really do destroy everything you touch, don’t you, Bakashi? Well, don’t worry too much. You won’t remember this in a few moments. Not coherently, at least. We’ll restart. What do you say, want to see your little pink-haired student next?”

_Genjutsu?_ that little part still sheltered behind the dam of rationality asked, but Kakashi smelled smoke and cinnamon, and he clung to the cinnamon despite himself.

_Gone,_

And it repeated.

    Sakura.

           Sasuke.

_gone, gone,_

  Gai.

                Yamato.

_gone,gonegone_

         Tsunade.

   Jiraiya.

                Shizune.

_gone,gonegonegone_

                      Kurenai.

         Asuma.

               Anko.

                           Genma. 

                  Raidou.

                         Yugao.

                               Hayate.

                                      Shisui.

_gonegone_ ** _gonegonegone_**

            Tou-san.

                      Kushina.

****Minato.

****Rin.

                                              Obi—

 

“Shh, I’m still here.”

Arms of cinnamon and smoke wrapped around Kakashi’s waist, and he clung to them with every fiber of his being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how Obito's technique uses muscle memory to manipulate its target? Well, Kakashi's mask means that he's spent his life eating and drinking in a very particular way, one that Gai recognizes.
> 
> As always, please leave kudos and comments! Even if I don't respond, know that I'm reading them and that they make my day.


	11. Wolf's Bane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Kakashi's visit with Kabuto plays out, and Obito takes the next step in his plot against Zetsu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: Graphic descriptions of violence; body horror; non-con.

“I see why you find him so appealing,” Kabuto murmured. “My interest, of course, is purely clinical,” he amended when faux-Madara's sharingan snapped toward him. Kabuto did not, after all, have a death wish. 

Kakashi had passed out in the Uchiha’s arms, shaking and drenched in cold sweat. His fingers were still buried in the Akatsuki cloak, white knuckles stark against the black fabric, just like when faux-Madara had exited the exam room, stroking the subject’s skin with something like tenderness.

It was… frustrating to see.

For the umpteenth time, Kabuto internally lamented that he hadn’t sent a better team to secure his master’s wayward dog. No matter, though, he reminded himself. He would need to subdue Sasuke before he could even begin Orochimaru’s resurrection. He had time to play faux-Madara’s game.

Speaking of Madara. “This way, Uchiha-san.” Kabuto glided into his primary lab and relished the dampness of the too cool air that greeted him.

Once he’d grasped the water-nature logic of Impure World Resurrection’s sealwork, it had been deceptively easy to alter, which had made faux-Madara’s secondary request more a pleasure than a chore. Sure, resurrecting the real Uchiha Madara would lend immense military strength to whoever happened to be on his good side, but resurrecting _Senju Tobirama?_ It was a dream come true. And, if Kabuto was being honest with himself, it was the only reason he wasn’t sabotaging the project.

(Perhaps faux-Madara had known that. Perhaps faux-Madara was smarter than he seemed. Perhaps faux-Madara was playing him.)

Kabuto nearly laughed outloud at the thought. The bastard _needed_ him and his expertise, and that gave Kabuto leeway. Specifically, the leeway to build in a few failsafes. Full resurrection didn’t necessarily mean free-will, after all, and having Uchiha Madara and Senju Tobirama on a leash would make his life much easier. And it’s not like faux-Madara would notice the seals that Kabuto had slipped into the matrix. (Kabuto preferred not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t been the one to devise them. The Akatsuki’s pet plant may have unintentionally pointed him toward the seals via a slip of the tongue, but Kabuto was more than willing to take what he was given.)

As Kabuto expected, faux-Madara gave the details little more than a cursory glance—a fault of all non-scientific minds, no doubt—and instead focused on the coffins.

He made no move to set the dog down, even as he strode forward until he was a hairsbreadth from the real Madara’s semi-dessicated skin. Kabuto felt a sneer pull at his lips.

“How long?” faux-Madara asked.

“A few more weeks,” Kabuto lied. He would raise them far sooner.

“Hm,” faux-Madara hummed. He began to card his fingers through the dog’s hair again.

The sneer twisted deeper, and Kabuto was glad that the Uchiha was facing away. His arrogance was insufferable. Just like Sasuke’s had been. Kabuto wondered whether he would resurrect Madara at all. Perhaps Tobirama would do. Yes, just Tobirama. The Second Hokage would be more than enough to wipe faux-Madara from this plane of existence and bring Sasuke to his knees. But no, no. Madara, too. It would just be too much _fun_ to have the legendary Uchiha on a leash.

Kabuto let his smile reach his eyes as he inquired as to when he might expect them next week.

 

 

Kakashi awoke in bed. His fingers and toes curled reflexively into the sheets.

Cinnamon. No smoke, and most importantly, no snake.

“Oh, good, you’re finally awake.” 

A weight settled at the end of the bed, and Kakashi resisted the urge to look, keeping his eye trained firmly on the wooden ceiling.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” the answer came automatically.

There was a sigh, and a hand rested on his leg through the fabric of the bedspread. “C’mon, Bakashi. You know I don’t like it when you lie.”

“I’m not lying,” Kakashi lied again.

A breathy laugh and a squeeze to his calf. “You’re a stubborn bastard.” The weight disappeared.

Kakashi waited for a moment, bracing, but no further touch came. He risked a glance to the side. Obito had moved into the kitchen.

“What do you want to eat?” Obito didn’t turn around when he spoke.

_Why are you asking my opinion?_ Kakashi wanted to respond, but didn’t. It was… nice the way Obito was acting. He was cinnamon. Everything, cinnamon, and Kakashi wanted everything to stay cinnamon.

“No appetite?”

Panic erupted in Kakashi’s chest as he realized that he hadn’t yet responded. Obito hated when he didn’t respo—

A sigh. “I don’t blame you. You had a long day. I’ll steam some rice to settle your stomach.” And he _did_.

Kakashi watched the eerily domestic scene play out in the corner of his eye. Obito was dressed simply. Black shirt, black pants, no shoes. Comfortable. Homely. But under the scent of cinnamon, a touch of chemical antiseptic peaked out, and Kakashi was yanked back to cold metal and pain and—

“Obito, what happened?” His voice sounded small even to his own ears. 

The Uchiha paused, wrist-deep in rice with water still streaming from the tap. “…more than I had planned, to be honest.” He turned around, single black eye intense, but not in the way Kakashi had expected. He looked almost _worried_. “How much do you remember?”

“Not much.”

Obito seemed to understand what he meant: nothing. “Honestly, probably a good thing.” He turned off the water and half-leaned against the counter, palms curled over the edge. “I don’t think you’ll be going back.”

Kakashi slowly sat up and tried not to feel elated, only for his heart to stutter when Obito seemed to reconsider his words.

The Uchiha drummed his fingers against the cabinets, scarred half of his face twisting just slightly. “Unless you relapse, of course, but you’ve been doing so well recently—”

“I won’t.” The promise slipped from Kakashi’s lips despite the buzz at the back of his head saying that he should take offense, that he should reject the wording and snarl at its implications. “I won’t relapse.”

Obito stared at him for a long moment, as if waiting for something, but it never came. A soft smile broke out across his face. “Good.” He turned back to the rice. “Rest a bit longer. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

Kakashi had nearly fallen asleep again when a scarred hand came to rest on his bare shoulder and run down his back. And it must have been his sleep-addled mind that made him arch into the touch.

There was a soft laugh. It sounded smug. “Come on. It’s ready.”

( _Danger!_ the voice in the back of his head screamed. Not-quite-remembered scenes of dead friends and dripping blood crushed it mercilessly.)

 

 

 

Ino stared in disbelief at the flesh strewn across the lab in bloody streaks. Even with the missing head, there could be no doubt: Yakushi Kabuto had been quartered alive in his own home and left to rot.

“What the fuck happened?”

“Whatever it was, it’s been at least two days,” Neji observed.

Ino rolled her eyes, some tension bleeding out of her shoulders as irritation overtook it. “Yes, thank you for that, Neji. I couldn’t figure that out from the smell alone.”

“Hey, do either of you want a hand over there?” Sai flashed his insufferable grin as he held up what might have once been Yakushi’s left forearm. “I have three right now.”

To Ino’s absolute disgust, Neji fucking _smirked_.

She groaned and retreated to the other room where Gai paced, chin bobbing up and down as he muttered to himself. It was the most withdrawn Ino had ever seen him. She waited by the doorway, hands crossed behind her back. When he finally acknowledged her, she nodded and launched into her report: Yakushi Kabuto was entirely, certainly, one-hundred-percent deceased. “The wounds and blood splatter indicate that he was quite literally pulled apart mid-air,” she continued. “Whoever killed him, they were angry.”

“Any sign of who that person was?” Gai’s tone gave Ino the distinct impression that he wished _he_ had been the one to dismember the bastard. 

(Kabuto kept notes when it came to experiments. Many, many notes. The few they had read now lay across the floor, ripped where Gai’s rage had gotten the better of him. Ino hoped they would be readable for the analysis teams back in Konoha.)

Ino shook her head. “Maybe an experiment that got loose?” she mused. “The room is infused with unstable chakra, especially the soil. Perhaps Yakushi was experimenting on someone with a bloodline similar to Juugo’s and we just haven’t found the documentation yet.”

Gai nodded pensively. He wasn’t convinced. Neither was Ino.

Then Neji called for them from the other room. 

The Hyuuga’s Byakugan was already active when they entered. He was staring at the hand that Sai still held, although the latter was doing so a bit more gingerly than before. 

“Remember the prisoner’s testimony?” Neji asked after a moment, question clearly directed at Ino. She’d interrogated Chikako herself after being granted the requisite clearance.

“Yes, what about it?”

“If I recall correctly, she said that the trees had come alive and ripped her team apart. Were Konoha shinobi ever able to confirm the use of mokuton?”

Ino slowly shook her head, a dull feeling of horror blooming in her stomach as her mind raced ahead of Neji’s words. “Not fully, why?” (Ripped apart mid-air. Held aloft and torn open by branches every-which-way—)

Neji lips thinned. “Because I think I just did.” He gestured sharply at Sai, who turned the arm over in his hands and pulled back a strip of putrid skin and muscle. Leafy shoots sprouted from the exposed flesh.

It took all of Ino’s self-control to not swear out-loud. “Let me see.”

Sai handed her the arm without complaint. She cleared off the least-bloodied examination table and laid it down on the metal surface, using a quick chakra scalpel to bisect it lengthwise along the marrow of the bone—or at least what used to be marrow. 

“Are those cooking herbs?” Sai sounded almost puzzled.

“Definitely not,” Ino muttered. She gestured vaguely toward the other side of the room. “Bring me something from over there.”

Gai brought her part of the upper thigh, femur intact. She cracked it open and exhaled sharply through her nose. “Fuck.”

“What’s wrong?” Gai sounded concerned. A reasonable thing, given the situation, but really, he should have already realized what the cause for concern was (beyond just the dead body sprouting leafy greens several dozen feet underground. When she returned to Konoha, she would need to lobby for a botany course at the academy.)

She plucked a sprig from where it bloomed in what used to be Yakushi Kabuto’s inner thigh. She held it up to the light. “Sensei, this is aconite. Also known as wolf’s bane.”

A long silence followed. 

When Gai finally spoke, his tone was unnaturally cold. “You think that it’s an allusion to Kakashi.”

Ino shook her head sharply. “No. Combined with the notes in there, I _know_ that it is.” She frowned. “Whoever has Kakashi-sensei came to pay Yakushi back for his and Orochimaru's experiments, and they wanted us to know it. Which means,” she continued, stomach dropping, "that we haven't gone as unnoticed as we'd hoped."

 

 

Obito drummed his fingers along Kakashi’s spine and grinned as the silverette’s eyelashes fluttered against his other hand. “Having fun, Bakashi?” The younger man hadn’t noticed Obito boil a few tea leaves into the rice while he was resting. “The small doses are much more pleasurable, don’t you think?” He licked the shell of Kakashi’s ear and grinned wider when the latter let out a breathy gasp. The grin lessened slightly when nothing followed, but Kakashi couldn’t be expected to learn proper etiquette _that_ quickly. Honestly, Obito was pleased enough that the silverette was obediently bent over the edge of the table without needing a mokuton-based nudge. He would excuse the lack of verbal response for now.

“You’re so pretty like this,” Obito hummed, continuing to trail one hand down Kakashi’s back as the other kept him firmly blindfolded. Kakashi’s kimono, one of the more casual ones that Obito had provided out of the goodness of his heart, gaped open, held up only by the tight obi still clinging to his waist. “Aw, Bakashi, you’re blushing.”

The comment made pale skin flush a deeper pink. Still no back-talk. Kakashi was taking his “no relapse” declaration quite seriously. Amazing what a bit of well-applied pressure could do. 

Obito smiled again. Kabuto may not have been contiguous anymore, let alone breathing, but he continued to be so wonderfully useful.

If Obito was being honest with himself, he hadn’t intended to kill the wannabe snake. Well, he hadn’t intended to let him live either, but Kabuto had been privileged enough to sit in an ambiguous gray area between useful and irritating. Then Obito had seen the sealwork wound through the snake’s version of Impure World Resurrection, and he'd lost all value. Really, an embarrassing number of people seemed to forget that his sensei had been one of the greatest sealmasters to emerge since the Fall of Uzushio. Sure, Obito hadn’t actually learned any sealwork _from_ Minato, but the association had been enough to make him look into the field later in life.

Zetsu seemed to have forgotten that little tidbit, too, seeing as those seals were rather similar to the “decorative” sealwork wound through the fake tablet that Zetsu had so _generously_ pointed Madara in direction of all those years ago.

As if on cue, the freak phased through the wooden wall of the kitchen. Kuro looked absolutely murderous.

Obito hid a smirk in the nape of Kakashi’s neck.

The silverette shuddered as what was probably a horribly acrid smell reached his nose. Zetsu had never smelled the best, and Obito didn’t have the misfortune of an overly sensitive olfactory system. “Sorry, dear, I need to visit with a guest. Stay here would you?”

Kakashi yelped as mokuton replaced Obito’s weight against his back, tying him down to the table and pinning his wrists above his head. Kakashi flashed Obito a betrayed look over his shoulder and opened his mouth, probably to protest, only for a particularly adventurous tendril to slip past his lips and form a gag as another wrapped itself around Kakashi’s single wide eye. Two more secured his ankles to the ground, spread wide.

Obito ran a hand through the silverette’s hair and lightly kissed his temple, then smiled when Hatake Kakashi, former jonin and vicious friend-killer, trembled beneath his hand like a trapped fawn. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before it wears off. The release is always better once you delay it a bit.” With a mischievous glint in his eye that the blindfolded Kakashi couldn’t see, Obito reached under the disheveled kimono and ran his hand up and down Kakashi’s already hard length once. Kakashi cried out through the gag and tried to jerk forward. In response, Obito clucked his tongue and made sure to fasten the other’s hips in place, just in case Kakashi got some fanciful idea of chasing his release _before_ Obito returned.

Obito straightened and smoothed a crease from his shirt. Kakashi pinned to a table, tremors running down straining limbs, kimono barely hanging on—it made an even prettier picture from a distance. 

With a disappointed sigh, Obito turned toward Zetsu, and his smile dropped into a glower. “Shall we?”

 

 

“You’ve gone insane.”

“In my defense, that is a thing Uchiha are known for.”

Kuro growled and it seemed as though Shiro had to physically hold his other half back.

They’d stopped beneath the Gedo Mazo. Obito had perched himself comfortably on a rocky outcropping, eye-level with Zetsu who insisted on standing. The grotesque statue loomed above them.

“Why? _Why?!_ ” Kuro screeched, black fingers curling into green hair. “Have you abandoned your perfect world? Our _master’s_ perfect world?”

Obito rolled his eye. “Oh, come on, Zetsu, don’t over react. I killed Kabuto, I didn’t torch the sealwork. I plan to resurrect gramps by the end of the week.”

Shiro smiled, yellow eye crinkling into a crescent. “See? Tobi-kun didn’t mean it.” The border between Kuro and Shiro shivered with barely suppressed rage, and Shiro fell quiet.

“We aren’t _ready_ to resurrect Madara-sama yet,” Kuro hissed. “Three of the beasts are still unaccounted for, and over half our pawns’ chakra is currently focused on sealing the Rokubi.”

Obito waved his hand dismissively. “The remaining bijuu won’t be free for long. We’re six in and we’ve barely lost any firepower.”

Zetsu snarled. “Nine disobedient, moronic _children_ won’t win a war. We need _more_. More resources, less distractions—”

“Excuse you. There are ten of us.”

Zetsu probably would have murdered him then and there had the plant not needed him. And it was clear that the plant did need him. Obito had surmised that long ago. And Zetsu _especially_ needed him now that his Plan B Yakushi Kabuto had turned to mulch.  Obito, however, was becoming more and more sure that he did not need Zetsu.

Of course, he didn’t want to be the one to attack. Who knew what failsafes the freak might have in place? No, no, Obito would wait and watch and—most importantly—sick someone else on him first.

And he had the most _wonderful_ candidates. 

Honestly, they’d practically volunteered themselves by insisting that the lovely failure currently bent over Obito’s kitchen table deserved to return to the village that had ruined him in the first place. They wouldn't be hard to aim at Zetsu, not with a carefully chosen selection of Kabuto's notes removed from the mix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you weren't expecting that. ;) Also, get excited because MadaTobi is coming soon!
> 
> As always, please leave kudos and a comment if you enjoyed this chapter. Each one makes my day.


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